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Tuis series of Scanpinavian Ctassics is published 
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SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS 
VOLUME XV 


THE CHARLES MEN 


BY 
VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM 


PART I 





THIS VOLUME IS ENDOWED BY 


MR. CHARLES S. PETERSON 


OF CHICAGO 


THE CHARLES MEN 


BY 
VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM 
2. 


TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH 
BY CHARLES WHARTON STORK 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FREDRIK BOOK 


PART I 


NEW YORK 
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION 


LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 


1920 


(Copyright, 1920, by The American-Scandinavian Foundation 


D. B. Updike » The Merrymount Press » Boston - U.S.A. 


TO THE MEMORY OF 
THOSE HEROES 
WHO WITH HONESTY OF PURPOSE 
HAVE BATTLED GALLANTLY 
IN LOST CAUSES 
AND GONE DOWN SMILING 
BEFORE MANY SPEARS 
THIS VOLUME 
IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED 
BY THE TRANSLATOR 


CONTENTS 
Part I 


Introduction 

The Green Corridor 

A Sermon 

The Successor to the Throne 
Midsummer Sport 

Gunnel the Stewardess 
French Mons 

The Queen of the Marauders 
Mazeppa and His Ambassador 
Fifty Years Later 

The Fortified House 

A Clean White Shirt 
Poltava 

Behold My Children! 

At the Council Table 

In the Church Square 
Captured 


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VERNER VON FEIDENSTAM 
Author of “The Charles Men” 


I 


OR more than five years the world has been 

full of strife and the clash of weapons, and still 

the last shot has not been fired or the last sword 
thrust into its sheath. Humanity finds itself in a 
situation recalling that in which Lucius Cary, Vis- 
count Falkland, found himself during the English 
Revolution and Civil War; when Clarendon relates 
that he, “sitting among his friends, often, after a 
deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill 
and sad accent, ingeminate the word Peace, Peace ; 
and would passionately profess that the very agony 
of the war, and the view of the calamities and deso- 
lation the kingdom did and must endure, took his 
sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart.” 
It is at this time that there is brought before the 
American public one of the most distinguished 
works of modern Swedish literature; a work de- 
voted to the king who lived his whole life in the 
field and died in a trench, and who even in the days 
of Voltaire stood as the genius of war, the symbol 
of its desolating and misfortune-bringing might; 
a work that deals only with campaigns and _bat- 
tles, with slaughter and pillage, the wailing of the 


= INTRODUCTION 


wounded, and the long, hopeless agony of the cap- 
tives—with all that humanity would fain forget, 
and cannot forget. The moment might seem to be 
ill chosen; more than one, perhaps, may feel him- 
self minded as Aeneas when, having barely escaped 
from the burning of Troy, the swords of the 
Greeks, and the terrors of shipwreck, Queen Dido 
asks him to relate the story of his life, and he an- 
swers with a shudder: J/ufandum, Regina, jubes reno- 
vare dolorem. 

But as surely as it is the province of fiction to 
give us what we do not have in fact, and to make 
us forget what hurts and oppresses us, so surely 
does it also have the mission of helping us to un- 
derstand what we have gone through, of looking 
with clearer and purer eyes on the struggles and 
experiences of life. Fiction frees from external real- 
ity, not only by taking us away to the lands of fan- 
tasy and the world of beautiful visions, but by ani- 
mating the dead matter of events, by giving signifi- 
cance and substance to things, by showing us the 
confusing spectacle sud specie aeterntitatis. From this 
point of view, The Charles Men is a timely work. 
The fall of the Swedish empire, the desperate con- 
test of an inflexible ruler for what he believed to be 
true and right, the boundless suffering of an ill- 
fated people, the ravages of hunger which they en- 


VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM xi 


dured, their growing despair and infinite fortitude, 
their inevitable ruin and eternal glory — such is the 
picture that appears before us in simple, majestic 
lines; a tragedy clear and compelling as one of the 
Greeks’, composed by thevery history of the world, 
and fitted to purify our hearts through terror and 
pity, as Aristotle taught. He who ponders the na- 
ture of war and the philosophy of history may win 
instruction from the epic which Swedish history and 
Swedish imagination together have formed about 
Charles XII and his men. It was no superficial ro- 
mance of war, no rancorous and hypocritical chau- 
vinism, that inspired Verner von Heidenstam. He 
saw before his eyes the misery and degradation of 
war;no pacifistic Barbusse has painted it in grimmer 
colors than he. He saw the problematic side of his 
hero; the rigid, petrified insensibility that misfor- 
tunes and spiritual torments wrought in the breast 
of the king. And yet he felt deeply the moral beauty, 
the human magnanimity, which these men of battle 
displayed, and which they gave to posterity as a 
noble, strengthening essence, extracted from with- 
ered herbs and crushed reeds, a medicina mentis for 
every one who must needs fight, endure, be van- 
quished and overpowered. 

The highest praise one can give to The Charles 
Men is that this work, which was composed in deep- 


xii INTRODUCTION 


est peace, has not lost its color and quality during 
the World War. Verner von Heidenstam has come 
forward among the pacifists side by side with Ro- 
main Rolland; but he does not belong to the super- 
ficial, blind zealots for peace of whom Paul Elmer 
More speaks in his profound and humane essay, 
The Philosophy of War. He belongs with those who 
have always seen mankind in all its contradictory 
profusion and have laid to heart what the great 
American critic writes: “ Nor is war in itself wholly 
bestial. There has grown up amongst us of recent 
years a literature devoted to the propaganda of 
peace, both in the form of fiction and of exhorta- 
tion, which throws into vivid relief all the horrors 
incidental to the battlefield, and slurs over and de- 
nies the honor and exaltation that are also a part 
of the soldier’s life. That literature, I say boldly, is 
as false and mischievous as its Nietzschean antago- 
nist. There is an element of heroism in war which, 
through all the waste and evil, has not been without 
its salutary effect. Is it because he has passed his life 
in a career entirely cruel and vile that the typical 
soldier, in his later years of retirement, is a man so 
true and honorable, often so gentle? Shall we, in 
our imagination of peace, forget all that we have 
felt in the reading of history, and slander our in- 
stincts?””’ 


VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM Xili 


True, honorable, gentle—that is the stamp of the 
Charles men: the prisoners in Siberia, as they are 
gathered around the Bible in their bitter poverty; 
and those that have returned to their native land, 
as they set the plough in the earth to build a new 
Sweden on the ruins of the old. 

It is not, however, the affair of the Swedish critic 
to subjoin the reflections to which The Charles Men 
invites, but to tell of the author who wrought the 
work, and to make clear what we admire in it. 


II 


Verner von Heidenstam is by birth an aristocrat; 
he was born on the sixth of July, 1859, at the manor 
house of Olshammar in Narke. As a boy he was 
thought to have lung trouble, and for that reason 
did not follow the usual course of education; in- 
stead he was sent to the milder climate of southern 
Europe. His youth received, therefore, a different 
impress from that of most Swedish authors of the 
same age. The horizon of the Mediterranean sur- 
rounded it. He lived in Italy and visited Greece, 
Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor; while for nearly 
eight years he was away from Sweden. The attrac- 
tion toward the Orient was very strong in his na- 
ture; one has the impression that it was found in 
all of his family, because at the end of the seven- 


xiv INTRODUCTION 


teenth century one of his ancestors was the Swed- 
ish Minister at Constantinople, and was actively in- 
terested in Turkish civilization; another travelled 
to Persia, and died in 1878 as chargé d’affaires in 
Athens, and branches of the stock are still flourish- 
ing in Cyprus and Smyrna. Heidenstam wanted 
to become a painter, and was in fact a pupil at the 
studio of Gérome in Paris. But it gradually became 
clear to him that he was above all a poet; in 1887 
he returned to Sweden, and in 1888 made his debut 
with the collection, Pilgrimage and Wander-Years. 

In this we have the verse of a painter; strongly 
colorful, plastic, racy, vivid. In the bold, sometimes 
careless, form there is nothing academic; all is seen 
and felt and experienced, the observation is sharp 
and the imagination lively. The young poet-artist 
reproduces the Italian carnival, the French life of 
the streets, impressions of Attic landscapes; he tells 
stories from the Thousand and One Nights, and con- 
jures up before us the bazaars of Damascus. He 
loves the ancient world: its clear beauty, its fresh 
joy of life; he showers ridicule and scorn upon the 
ugly, sad, nervous, bustling present. In the care- 
free indolence of the East he sees the last reflection 
of the old happy innocence, and for that reason he 
loves it. He is a reckless epicurean, who lets the 
Egyptian priests of Hator proclaim: 


VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM XV 


Wine, the kiss of a girl, and the daring jest that will startle 
Senile women and men—to the gods above these are blameless. 


And yet amid all the gay hedonism in Pilgrimage 
and Wander-Years is a cycle of short poems, 
Thoughts in Loneliness, filled with brooding, melan- 
choly, and sombre longing. 

In the year 1888 Heidenstam brought out a 
volume of travel descriptions, From Col di Tenda to 
Blocksberg; and in the novel Exdymion, published 
in 1889, he displayed a picture of the East which 
is stifled to death in the embrace of the West. Ina 
couple of brochures, Renascence (1889) and Pepita’s 
Wedding (1890), the latter a rollicking jeu esprit 
executed in collaboration with the poet and literary 
historian, Oscar Levertin, he attacked the prevalent 
naturalism, the gray-weather mood in life and fic- 
tion. With the right of a strong, youthful tempera- 
ment he craved an art that would move freely and 
boldly, unfettered by social doctrines and pseudo- 
scientific theories of the day; he wished to give 
back their dues to the imagination, to the love of 
beauty, and insisted upon the sovereignty of the 
artist. hese writings took on a decisive meaning 
in the development of Swedish literature: during 
the decade of 1880 Sweden had been dominated by 
the “literature of indignation,” literature with a 


xvi INTRODUCTION 


purpose, by the naturalism of the positivists, and 
by methodized prose. Heidenstam turned the cur- 
rent: the decade of 1890 became lyrical and ima- 
ginative, the decade of free and sovereign poetry. 
Gustaf Froding, Selma Lagerlof, Per Halstrom, 
and Erik Axel Karlfeldt carried out the program 
that Heidenstam and Levertin had laid down. 

But the joy of life and enthusiasm for beauty, 
which the young Heidenstam had proclaimed, soon 
gave place in himself to deeper moods. Even the 
great fantastic epic, Hans Alienus, which he com- 
pleted in 1892, is a monument on the grave of his 
care-free and indolent youth. He discovered that 
beauty cannot satisfy the hunger of the soul; his 
hero, a pilgrim in the storied lands of the East, is 
a brooding Faust, who even in the pleasure-gar- 
dens of Sardanapalus cannot cease from his painful 
search after the meaning of life. He is driven back 
by his yearning to the snowy country of his fathers, 
far up in the Swedish forest of Tiveden. 

In the collection, Poems, which Heidenstam 
brought out in 1895, the horizon of the Mediter- 
ranean has disappeared. The soughing fir-trees tell 
him stories different from those he listened to 
among dancers and camel-drivers. The love he now 
sings is that which a man’s own effort has brought 
to birth, and which “flings arms of flame around 


VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM xvii 


heaven and earth.” The meagre land rises before 
his glance with new beauty: it is the stretch of earth 
which his fathers cleared with toil and self-denial. 
No one has praised home more fervently and inti- 
mately than the pilgrim and traveller, the restless 


wanderer: 
A home!’ T is like a fortress 
By walls securely shielded,— 
Our world, our own, the one thing 


We in this world have builded. 


Heidenstam’s nationalism, which had its theoretical 
expression in many of the essays which he collected 
in 1899 under the title Thoughts and Sketches, is 
above all born of a deep filial affection for the past. 
Annals, monuments, ruins, and portraits become 
living realities to the man of powerful imagination; 
wherever he goes, the present moment unfolds and 
lets us look into the ancient records; the dead sur- 
round us like gigantic spirits, overshadowing our 
thoughts. But despite this entering into the past, 
which is so characteristic of Heidenstam, his tra- 
ditional bent has never become an inflexible con- 
servatism. There is a strong democratic current 
throughout all of his markedly aristocratic nature. 
Among Poems is included Singers in the Steeple, 
where he celebrates the idea of brotherhood, and 
makes the classes privileged as to power and gold 


XVili INTRODUCTION 


pour their treasures into a cup, on which is in- 
scribed: 


Not joy to the rich, to the poor man care; 
Our toil and our pleasure alike we share. 


The collection of poems that gives the strongest 
expression to his passion for his country, 4 People 
(1902), contains the lyric Fe//ow-Citizens, where he 
takes up the cause of universal suffrage and thor- 
oughgoing democracy. 

The Charles Men, which appeared in 1897-98, is 
Heidenstam’s chief work in prose; to Swedish read- 
ers it is evident that only verse allows his artistic 
greatness to come to its full right. The Charles Men 
forms the introduction to a series of historical de- 
scriptions: St. Birgitta’s Pilgrimage (1901), which 
sets before us the greatest religious personality of 
Sweden in the Middle Ages; Folke Filbyter (1905) 
and Ihe Legacy of Bjalbo (1907), which render the 
ancient and mediaeval times in pictures composed 
around the Folkung family; The Swedes and their 
Chieftains (1908-10), which makes all the Swedish 
annals pass by in review. The last-named work is 
written in the form of a reader for Swedish schools. 
In the collections of tales, St. George and the Dragon 
(1900), and the volume of sagas and stories which 
he collected in 1904 under the title Forest Murmurs, 


VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM xix 


are to be found some of his most original and per- 
sonal creations. His last book is New Poems (1915), 
where the simple and compact form of the lyrics 
expresses the noble, quiet humanism of the ripened 
and matured man. 

After his homecoming in 1887, Heidenstam set- 
tled for a time on his ancestral estate of Olsham- 
mar, but in 1890 shifted to Djursholm near Stock- 
holm, and in 1897 participated in the founding of 
the great national-liberal newspaper, the Svenska 
Dagblad, whose program was defence and reform. 
In 1g00 he settled at Naddo (near Vadstena), on the 
shore of Lake Wettern, which he loved so deeply 
- and on whose strand was situated the home of his 
childhood. In 1917 he departed thence, after his 
third marriage, like both of those preceding, had 
been dissolved by divorce, and in 1919 he betook 
himself afresh to foreign travel. In 1910 he was 
made an honorary Doctor of Philosophy by the 
University of Stockholm; in 1912 he became a 
member of the Swedish Academy, and in 1916 re- 
ceived the Nobel Prize for Literature. 


Ill 
The Charles Men is a poem in prose. Heidenstam’s 
technic has all the freedom, abandon, even caprice 
that belongs to verse. There is no steady and clear 


x INTRODUCTION 


stream of narrative in his work; he leaps over what 
is inessential, and his imagination concentrates it- 
self on the scene, the figure, the detail that strikes 
him as significant. This technic is in accord with the 
historical atmosphere. Uniform realism, methodical 
description, and painstaking motivation may be in 
place in a modern novel; if, on the other hand, it 
is a question of conjuring up visions from the past, 
the poet must not bring his figures out into the full 
daylight—that can only lead to destroying the il- 
lusion,as when masks go about inthe sunshine. We 
must have a broad river of darkness, which con- 
tains all the mystery of the past, and against this 
black background the figures and scenes may glim- 
mer forth— symbolic flashes of that life whose 
depth and scope one cannot define, but only sur- 
mise. 

That Heidenstam dreamed at one time of be- 
coming a painter, to this every page of The Charles 
Men bears witness. What a mighty composition is 
the picture of Stockholm’s castle in flames which 
closes the first narrative, The Green Corridor! Hei- 
denstam has rendered the picturesque element of 
Charles XII’s history with the most finished art: 
not only the gloomy scenes in black, gray, and 
white from the wintry land in the North, but also 
the variegated and highly colored representations 


VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM Xxl 


of the wanderings in the war. The Queen of the Ma- 
rauders among the Cossacks by the Beresina; the 
march of Mazeppa, surrounded by drunken Zapo- 
rogeans; the flaxen-haired Stupid Swede in the 
serail of the sultana, among gilded parrot-cages and 
black cypresses—one could not draw a more mas- 
terly contrast between the simple poverty of the 
Charles folk and the exoticism of the Orient. 

The artist reveals himself everywhere, but so, 
too, does the aristocrat. The patriarchal idy] of the 
country manor is immortalized in the airy Midsum- 
mer Sport. The gay, care-free spirit of adventure that 
played through the centuries among the Swedish 
nobility is incarnate in the indomitable Grothusen 
who is always in debt; and when Rika Fuchs rides 
in front of his regiment to make an estimate of his 
property, every Swede must recognize the national 
sense of humor. The joking spirit has undergone 
an intimate union with a proud and taciturn sense 
of duty. It is only in the solitude of the prison cell 
that Gustaf Celsing gives words to the deep grief 
that burns among these officers, humiliated, in- 
sulted, trampled to earth in the service of their be- 
loved master: 


In alien places 
His men of proud races 
As beggars must crouch. 


XXxil INTRODUCTION 


Even when dispersed in slavery, they preserve their 
sense of order and responsibility; they keep up their 
muster-rolls and accounts, they are nota horde but 
a people, a state (The General of Papers). 

Of the glittering conqueror, “ King Charles, the 
youthful hero,” illuminated by the sunshine of tri- 
umph and success, whom Tegner celebrated a hun-_ 
dred years after, Heidenstam has not much to tell. 
Only for a brief second may we catch a glimpse of 
his boyish ardor as he steps ashore at Zeeland. It 
is in the time of adversity and defeat that he begins 
to interest Heidenstam. When the king feels him- 
self to be alone, abandoned by God and man, the 
transfiguration of poetry falls over his form. He is 
a wholly tragic figure. The author himself has pro- 
pounded his view of Charles XII in an essay: “A 
tragic problem comprises a duel between conflict- 
ing claims of right which appear so strong that it 
lies beyond human justice to reject either one of 
them entirely. Not only is it impossible to cut the 
blood-red thread that the logic of misfortune spins 
through the tragedy, but even in respect to the final 
moral judgment we cannot get further than a dim 
scrutiny. This awakens sympathy, if not a full and 
devoted admiration for the tragic hero; but it 
arouses, too, inquisitive reflection, the search for a 
possible solution, however impossible it may be to 


VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM XX1ii 


find. The tragic problem is therefore insoluble to 
mankind,and from that fact, first and last, comes the 
general confusion in contemplating Charles XII, 
the continual dissension between our admiration on 
one side and our moral demands on the other. If 
a solution were ever possible, it would mean that 
the king was not really tragic; but we need have 
no fear. What is tragicin the deepest classical sense, 
if not the strife between the claims of personal and 
of universal justice that fill his life as we behold it? 
He finds himself treacherously attacked and en- 
snared. He cannot escape from the single thought 
that he must get back what force is tearing out of 
his hands. The prudent and the exhausted cry out 
for him to make peace, but he cannot overlook the 
thought that at the first opportunity the enemy will 
again fall upon him, if he does not first strike them 
to earth fora long period. It is not he that has made 
the Swedish empire, but if it collapses, it is he that 
must bear the shame; and the more his honor weak- 
ens, the more ambition becomes his all-engulfing 
passion. In this manner he assumes in his person 
all of his people’s demands for justice, and tragedy 
spreads its wings over millions.”’ 

The hero of this tragedy 1s, accordingly, not only 
the king, but the Swedish people as well. In Poltava 
Lewenhaupt says: “ The wreath he twined for him- 


XXiV INTRODUCTION 


self slid down upon his subjects instead.” And in 
A Hero’s Funeral Brother George answers the slan- 
derers and revilers: “Are not your eyes opened yet 
so as to see that it was our own secret will and de- 
sire which he preserved against our own indecision, 
like a banner against a rebellious guard?” 

The Charles Men, therefore, is not only a monu- 
ment over the fall of the Swedish empire, but also 
a hymn on the beauty in its destruction, the hope- 
less magnanimity of obedience to duty, the poetry 
of sacrifice. It expresses Heidenstam’s deeply tragic 
philosophy of life. The highest that a man can at- 
tain is to fall with honor, and such is the fate of the 
best. Happiness is common and superficial ; suffer- 
ing is holy and great. 

None of the stories in The Charles Men is more 
deeply characteristic of Heidenstam than The Stu- 
pid Swede. The parks and pavilions of the Turkish 
serail, with their roses and jewels, symbolize the 
oriental doctrine of pleasure and beauty that he cel- 
ebrated in his youth. But at the moment when the 
awkward and joyless Swedish thrall stands among 
the glittering, soulless dancing-girls, who know 
nothing more of earth than that it is lovely, and 
dream of nothing else than of a kiosk with red 
damask hangings and perfumed fountains, her form 
suddenly takes on an exaltation that none of the 


VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM XXV 


others possesses; and when she seizes the basket 
with the snake in order to fulfil her duty, it is she 
who is the most beautiful. Beauty of self-sacrifice, 
of misfortune, of the soul, causes her to shine more 
brightly than even the odalisque Evening Star- 
light. 

Anatole France has related a legend of the jug- 
gler of the Madonna who worshipped the Holy 
Virgin, and won her favor by the naive piety with 
which he performed his tricks in her honor. The 
Stupid Swede is a legend of that soul-temper which 
transforms ugliness to grace and misfortune to har- 
mony. That soul-temper ts glorified in the conclud- 
ing words of The Charles Men, where a benediction 
is called down upon the people who in their fall 
from greatness caused their poverty to be glorified 


before the world. 
FREDRIK BOOK 


Lund, Sweden, December, 1919 


The translator wishes to express his gratitude 
to Mr. O. A. Linder of Chicago for his col- 
lation of the English text with the original, 
and to Mr. Edwin Bjorkman of New York 
for assistance in certain difficult passages. 


THE CHARLES MEN 
BY 
VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM 


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THE CHARLES MEN 


The Green Corridor 
I: the castle attic, where the fire-chief sold 


brandy and ale, a tall, narrow-shouldered cus- 

tomer had been thrust. down the stairs and 
his empty pewter pot thrown after him, so that it 
rolled between his shoes. His worsted stockings 
were mended and dirty. He had tied his neck-cloth 
over his mouth and unshaven cheeks, and he con- 
tinued to stand with his hands in his coat-tail 
pockets. 

“Show out crazy Ekerot!”’ said the fire-chief. 
“He has spit tobacco plug into the ale, stuck Peter 
Painter with a bodkin, and 1s full of mischief all 
through. Then shut up the folding table! There is 
a command to bar the castle gates, for now it will 
soon be over with His Royal Majesty’s life.” 
One of the wardens was Charles XI’s faithful old 

servant, Hakon. He had a tranquil face, but walked 
so bowlegged in his stiff clothes that he looked as 
if he had just dismounted from a horse. He picked 
up the pot and stuck it good-naturedly under 
Ekerot’s arm. 

“T shall follow you, constable,” he said, — “ or 
lieutenant, or whatever I should call you.” 

“ Lars Ekerot is a captain in His Gracious Ma- 
jesty’s battle fleet,” answered Ikerot, “and travelled 


4 THE CHARLES MEN 


and learned in tongues he is, too. Here in the castle 
attic one sees no distinction between folk and folk. 
I shall leave a report and complain of it, that I 
shall. Have I not told you that soon fire shall rain 
from heaven, and every rafter in this house break 
out into bright flame? Mercenary councillors, un- 
righteous judgments,-execration, and lamentation, 
—that has become our daily bread, and the wrath 
of Heaven rests heavy on the land.” 

“ Lieutenant —or captain— you need not spread 
talk of worse misfortunes than those which God has 
already given us to bear. Round about in the sub- 
urbs has the fire made way, and for ten years we 
have had failure of harvest and famine. Four bush- 
els of rye already cost twelve rix-dollars in silver. 
Soon fodder will run short even in the royal stable, 
and the boats with imported grain lie frozen solid 
out by the coast.” 

Ekerot went down the steps beside him and 
looked around without fixing his small, restless 
eyes on any definite object. Sometimes he stood 
still, nodding and talking to himself in an under- 
tone. 

Through the loopholes came glimpses of the 
castle grounds far below and the covered terrace 
with obelisks and sentries who went back and forth 
in the trumpeters’ gallery. Beyond the snow-cov- 
ered towersand roofs, small groupsof people moved 
on the frozen Malar between King’s Island and 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR 5 
Séder. The light of the March evening shone 


slanting through one of the halls in the western 
wing of the castle, so that it appeared as if light had 
been kindled in the chandelier. 

“Yes, yes,” mumbled Ekerot, “that shall all 
burn, all—all that which was our shame, all that 
which was our greatness. I have seen shining fel- 
lows in the heavens, and when I sit with my pipe 
at night, I see in the tobacco smoke wonderful: 
planets, which show me that the old order of the 
world is upset. In Hungary and Germany rain 
down swarms of Arabia’s grasshoppers. The fire- 
spurting mountains cast up glowing stones. Two 
years ago we had grass finger-high in the park in 
February and heard the birds of spring, but in Sep- 
tember I picked strawberries at Essing. It is in such 
times that the Lord God opens the eyes of his elect 
so that they see what is hid.” 

“Tn God’s name, do not talk so!”’ stammered 
Hakon. “Do you see your visions waking or 
asleep?” 

“Between the two.” 

“TI promise that I shall report every word to His 
Royal Majesty himself, if you, lieutenant, will re- 
count for me quite veraciously all that you have 
seen and known. Do you see down below there the 
two windows where the shutters are closed? It isn’t 
half an hour since I was in there. There His Royal 
Majesty sits in a chair made into a bed with covers 


6 THE CHARLES MEN © 


and pillows, and he has become so small and dried 
up that he is only nose and lips. And he cannot 
raise his head. His poor Majesty, who has to en- 
dure such agony, though he is but some forty and 
odd years! Formerly, whenhecame limping through 
the door, I was most glad if I could slip out, but 
though I am only the least among servants, he can 
now put his arms around my neck and press me to 
him with streaming tears. I do not believe that he 
feels much more warmly for his son than he did for 
his wife. When he sends for him, he is brief of 
speech and mostly sits and looks at him. He speaks 
now only of his kingdom—and again of his king- 
dom. Up to a week ago I saw on his knee house- 
inspections and tariffs and such trifles, but now he 
has written down his secret instructions to his son 
and laid the letter in a sealed iron casket. As soon 
as any one steps into the room, it is as if both with 
his feverishly gleaming eyes and his words he stam- 
mered a constant: ‘ Help me, help me to uphold 
the kingdom, to make my son worthy and prudent. 
The kingdom, the kingdom!’” 

Hakon passed his hand across his forehead, and 
they went on down the steps from loophole to loop- 
hole. 

“Inthe room belowus to the left is Her Majesty, 
the queen dowager. She has locked herself up dur- 
ing these last days, and not even Tessin slips in with 
his portfolios. No one knows just what she 1s about, 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR 7 


but I can well believe that she does her best to ban- 
ish her sad thoughts with a game of cards. There’s 
a tinkling and jingling of watch-charms on the edge 
of the card table, and a crunching and a rustling 
and a frizzling of lace and ruffs—and a cane with 
a gold knob slips to the floor—”’ 

“‘And the pretty Lady Hedwig Stenbock, who 
stands behind the chair, picks Tee oh oe 

“That she certainly does n’t, for she is long since 
married and old and ugly, and at her own home. 
You live only in that which was and that which 1 is 
to be.”’ 

“That may be.”’ Ekerot screwed up his eyes and 
pointed to the north wing of the castle, which had 
just been reared by Tessin, after the old one had 
been levelled to the earth. Some scaffolds were stil] 
standing with fir branches on the highest pinnacles. 

“Well, who lives under that long box-lid? Fie! 
There lives no one at all—and neither will any one 
come to live there, that I know. Why could n’t it 
be left to stand as it was? Devil take the Gottorp 
woman that put all this building nonsense into the 
head of His Royal Majesty! You see, warder, just 
as every man has his soul, so every old house has 
in it all sorts of spooks and other creatures of dark- 
ness, which are disturbed and uncomfortable when 
people come with pick-axe and trowel. Do you re- 
member the Green Corridor which used to run 
under the section of the roof above the old castle 


8 THE CHARLES MEN 


church? It was there that for the first time I got my 
eyes opened. Oh, I’’ll tell you all about it. I will tell 
you the whole story, warder, if you will follow me 
home and then keep your promise to relate every 
word to His Royal Majesty himself.” 

Having now come down to the entrance door, 
they went on the drawbridge across the castle moat. 
A courier with a leathern bag on his back was just 
about to dismount from his horse, and his answer to 
the many questions was heard through the tramp- 
ling of feet and the orders. 

“For six miles north of Stockholm seen only 
three human beings— They sat by the side of the 
road and fed on an animal that had died a natural 
death. In Norrland a pound of meal mixed with 
bark cost five rix-dollars in silver. Soldiers starving 
to death— Regiments hardly half their comple- 
ment—”’ 

Ekerot nodded assentingly, as if all this had been 
_known to him long since, and he continued to walk 
beside Hakon with his pewter pot under his arm 
and his hands stuck in his coat tails. 

When they had come up to his attic room at 
Trangsund he gave Hakon a mistrustful side- 
look, and when he stuck the key into the lock he 
ascertained carefully that the door had not been 
opened in his absence. The room was large and 
bare. In the window stood a cage with a squirrel, 
and on one wall was a medley of unlike pieces of 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR 9 


money nailed up in rows. There were bright Elbing 
rix-dollars, small and large copper coins, a five- 
ducat piece of Reval, and even a couple of Palm- 
struch’s old bank-notes, which had been worthless 
for thirty years. Ekerot advanced, inspected, and 
counted the money. 

“A fool,” he said, “sinks his possessions so deep 
that he cannot himself keep watch over them, but 
I want to have them under my eyes, so that I can 
easily count them into a sack, when the great fire 
comes. 

Out of one corner, Ekerot carefully took five 
logs, which he put in the fireplace and lighted with 
a piece of tarred stick. Thereupon he and Hakon 
filled their pipes, and as there were no chairs, they 
sat on the floor in front of the blaze. 

“ Well, let us hear now,” said Hakon. 

Ekerot narrated: 


Never have I seen anything so frightful as the 
Green Corridor. That was at the time when I was 
constable with the battle fleet. Now they have given 
me my little pension of two hundred and fifty dol- 
lars. Oh, to be sure. I was as good as driven from 
the service because people were afraid lest otherwise 
I should end as admiral-in-chief. And ‘hat Hans 
Wachtmeister wants to be himself. ‘‘ The fellow is 
crazy!” he screamed on the deck, when I politely 
asked him to raise his hat before he ordered me into 


io THE CHARLES MEN 


the rigging. And so it was all up with me. Crazy 
Ekerot I was called wherever I came and went. So 
it keeps on. A poor journeyman carries a comrade 
to the grave; then he carries his master to the grave; 
and at last, for a groat, he carries one after another, 
gets himself a glazed hat and a long black cloak, 
and when he is in a hurry rolls of braid fall out of 
his pocket—and children take to their heels and 
weep and scream: “The corpse bearer, the corpse 
bearer!’’ But though one may become such a bug- 
bear, at the beginning we are, to be sure, all baked 
of the same dough. Report that now, word for word, 
to His Royal Majesty in person. Ah well, at that 
time I was quite skilful in drawing and sketching. 
A few days before that quarrel with Wachtmeister, 
I therefore received a gracious command to take 
with me another constable, who was called Nils, 
and appear in the store-room above the old papist 
church in the castle tower that stood by the river. 
There we were to draw a broken lantern of a gal- 
leon, according to which the queen dowager wished 
to have a new one made for her sloops on the 
Malar. 

When we had sat there in that manner for a day, 
gambling and worrying over the smashed lantern of 
the galleon, which the devil himself could n’t have 
drawn,a merry fitcame upon me,and I cried: “ Nils, 
have you ever seen a dog with five legs?” 


When Nils shrugged his shoulders, I went on: 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR Il 


“<1 saw one just now in Iron Square. He walked on 
four legs, and the fifth he had in his mouth.” 

Nils got angry, and to provoke him I cried still 
louder: ‘Clever you are not. Let’s see if you are 
brave. I’ll wager youthis pewter pint measure filled 
with good Spanish wine and with a ducat at the bot- 
tom that I shall go alone at guard-bell through the 
Green Corridor.” 

Nils replied: “I know that when you set your 
mind on anything it’s no use trying to keep you 
from it, and I don’t want that you should think 
me stingy of gifts. Therefore, my dear Ekerot, I 
take your wager as you desire, but I will not bear 
the responsibility to your old mother if any ill be- 
falls you. Therefore I prefer to go home to my place. 
In daytime this splendid building is fine enough to 
see; but at night strange things are supposed to 
happen here, and I'd rather sleep inthe wretchedest 
hole in the suburb.” 

I called him poltroon, and let him ramble off 
home. As soon as I was alone, I noticed that it had 
already begun to grow dark, and, in order to harden 
myself, I went up the two or three winding stair- 
ways to the Green Corridorand looked through the 
kevhole. 

The green paint had fallen downin many places, so 
that the older bright red color shone out. Along the 
walls stood all sorts of household furniture that had 
been worn out and carried up there. I saw cabinets 


12 THE CHARLES MEN 


and chairs, and representations of dogs and horses, 
and in the far corner a bed with drawn curtains, 
On the sides were hidden recesses, where there was 
a dropping and dripping from the leaky roofing. 

It was Walpurgis Night and therefore somewhat 
light, and this restored me to a certain feeling of se- 
curity, so that I could sit down and wait, but I knew 
that wondrous beings had their resort up there 
under the roof. The warders called them night-gob- 
lins, because only at twilight did they lift up the 
dark boards and stick out their heads. They were 
not larger than a three-years’ child, were brown al] 
over, naked, and had the bodies of women. Often 
they would sit mounted on a cabinet and wave their 
arms, and he who happened to touch a night-goblin 
died within the year. They were wont to spring 
about in the attics, and sometimes they shrieked 
in the privies and clattered under the seats, so that 
the court ladies dared not go there, but rather lay 
in bed with colic all night. 

As soon as I heard the guard-bell, I opened the 
door wide. 

I took a step forward, but my terror was so great 
that I remained standing with hands on the door- 
jamb and only stared. Through a bare space in one 
of the chalked panes I looked all the way up to the 
tower at Brunkeberg, and that strengthened me so 
that I sprang right into the Green Corridor, in order 


that the ringing should not be still before I had got 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR 13 


back. As long as it sounded, the creatures of dark- 
ness would have no power. 

In about the middle of the corridor I suddenly 
saw something dark shoot forward along the cur- 
tain-bed and slink down in one of the armchairs to 
hide or wait. My left knee gave way of itself, and 
I heard the echo of my scream through the attics. 
It was from that time that my eyes were opened so 
that men called me crazy. 

Against the light of the window, I saw that a man 
was sitting in the chair. He remained as motion- 
less as J. All at once he seized me by the arm and 
whispered through his teeth: “Pig/to di un cane! 
Spy? What are you? Thequeen dowager’s warder?”’ 

“God bless me!” I stammered, for now I under- 
stood that it was a fellow human being, and by the 
trembling and fumbling hands I comprehended that 
he was no less frightened than I myself. I even no- 
ticed that he was in his stocking feet, and had his 
shoes stuck in his bosom. 

I summoned my wits and described my foolish 
enterprise, and finally I was believed. 

“Such a damned, dilapidated old nest,” growled 
the man, to excuse his own astonishment. “ There 
are such drippings from the roof that my feet are 
wet through. As sure as I live, there shall be a new 
house here. My good man, if you can find the way, 
help me through this labyrinth of attics to the ball- 
room. Who I am is no matter.” 


14 THE CHARLES MEN 


“Very good,” I answered, though I recognized 
the gracious Chamberlain Tessin. 

He was silent, and took me by the coat tail, and 
so I turned and went before him. I imagine that at 
_ bottom we were both equally pleased at having hap- 
pened upon each other. When we came down to the 
ballroom, he ordered me to stand outside the door, 
but I heard the night-goblins jumping in the dark 
behind us, and I kept my hand on the lock, so that 
I was instantly able to open the door again and steal 
in after him unnoticed. Through the window I saw 
the river, and within, around the walls, stood a mul- 
titude of leaning side-scenes, painted with trimmed 
trees and white temples. 

Tessin stood in the middle of the hall and clapped 
his hands thrice, 

A lady rose behind the side-scenes, and opened 
a little dark lantern. Who should it be but Hedwig 
Stenbock, the queen dowager’s highborn lady-in- 
waiting ! Look, look, look,” I thought, biting my 
lips, “ has that foreign dandy there climbed so high 
already?” 

“ Hedwig, my dearest of all in the world!” said 
he. “Let us go directly to your room. No argu- 
ments, ma chére!”’ 

Hedwig Stenbock was then nearly thirty-five, 
and she went so stiffly and rigidly to meet him that 
I should not have believed she had either heart or 
soul, had she not all at once become wholly trans- 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR 15 


formed and showed the blood in her cheeks, when 
he. embraced her. 

Then I forgot myself, and burst out half aloud, 
SAha,yes!”’ 

Tessin turned around, but he was so hot that he 
only knitted his eyebrows and spilled out all his 
words in explaining my presence. 

““We might have needed some assistant in any 
case,” said he, “and Ekerot may be as good as any 
one else. If he knows how to keep silent, he shall 
not be without reward.” 

He then ordered me to take the dark lantern 
and go through the empty conference chambers — 
thanks for the favor!—and on, by a course which 
he described, to the corridor where the queen dow- 
ager’s ladies dwelt—sweet sleep, my pretties! As 
soon as I had carefully ascertained that no flies in 
court dress were buzzing around there, I was to re- 
turn and so report. 

I had, however, something else to announce, 
when I did come back. I had heard the night-gob- 
lins clatter inside the door of the Art Room, and 
had seen them running with small sparks of fire in 
their hands down the stairs to the Archive Hall, 
where the affairs of the kingdom lay in the wall 
cabinets, Finally, in the aforesaid corridor I had 
come upon one of the queen dowager’s warders, 
who sat asleep over his dark lantern with his back 
against the wall. 


16 THE CHARLES MEN 


“He has been sent there since I left,” said Hed- 
wig Stenbock, and again she stood as stiff and 
straight as at first. “ He does not suspect that the 
bird is already flown. But how to get back?” 

She pushed Tessin’s arms from her and became 
thoughtful. 

“Tong have I feared and suspected. To-night 
scandal has come upon us. Her Majesty is jealous.” 

Tessin clutched in the air with his hands as if 
toward invisible swords and daggers, and his eyes 
flashed and sparkled. 

“Jealous! Of me? She is forty and grizzled, and 
she is somewhat hoarse and rough of voice like a 
man. Shall I neverescape hearing that babble? With 
whom should I have laid my plans and sought gra- 
cious protection, if not with Sweden’s Hedwig Eleo- 
nora?” He bowed. “ Yet fear not, my dearest one, 
for no shame shall attach to your days, but this very 
night you shall follow me hence. A sleigh can al- 
ways be had—and then—addio! In Italy I have 
friends.” ; 

“God in heaven knows,” she answered, “‘that I 
will always follow you wherever you desire, and for 
men I care not at all, but will rather be by you than 
forsake you, yet we must first consider with a cer- 
tain friend what is wisest. I am thinking of Erik 
Lindskiold, who this evening sits and drinks with 
His Majesty. Ekerot shall go down across the 
courtyard to the king’s little staircase and wait there 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR 17 


till Lindskiold comes. Then—with many apolo- 
gies—he shall entreat him to hurry up here—to 
me. 

Tessin made a dissuasive motion with his hand, 
but I paid little heed to the cavalier, finding a 
greater pleasure in obeying such a noble lady. 

It had drawn far into the night when I came back 
with Lindskidld. He interrogated me fully about 
everything. His peruke swayed, and he swore 
kindly, guffawed, and was as noisy as if the whole 
castle were his. 

When he came into the ballroom, he bent one 
knee, while he threw his hat into the air and cried: 
“Are ye altogether staggering mad, my worthy 
folk, who of love would partake and never forsake, 
Piouen all to hinder you watch and wake? Your 
inclination gives more delectation than elevation. 
Paff, poof! A poor master builder, who thrives by 
adventure, though good luck bewilder, may not 
without censure suppose himself worth, sir, a lady 
of birth, sir. That day began mankind’s vexation 
when Adam awoke at Eve’s creation and said, im- 
pelled by a new proclivity: ‘Congratulations on 
your nativity!’” 

“ Fiddlededilly, reeling — silly !’”” muttered Tes- 
sin to his lady. ‘‘ That’s what they call the Swedish 
esprit. Lindskiold is drunk.” 

“Only a trifle. He is in the most favorable 
mood.” 


18 THE CHARLES MEN 


Lindskiold did not hear them, but went on so 
that the wide hall rang: “I have long suspected 
this, and the titled class is likely to take it ill. But 
travel to Italy! Ah, bah! Here the chamberlain has 
a land that needs his genius. Let him look me in the 
whites of the eyes, and say whether he can travel 
from the designs for the royal castle that he has 
spread out on my table, whether anything in the 
world is as dear to him as his art.” 

Tessin became blood-red, and looked downinthe 
light of the lantern. 

“‘] have determined to marry Chamberlain Tes- 
sin,” said Hedwig Stenbock, “and that is how this 
has happened.” 

Lindskidld laid his hand on his heart: “ Of 
course, of course! says the royal widow. A wreath 
will I twine, the best to be had, of flower and vine 
from my Lindevad. I was born at no manor, with 
chapel and banner, and my sire was a smith, but 
they made him forthwith— aha, burgomaster of 
Skenninge. Think if the chamberlain had sprung 
from Skenninge. How would he have built then? 
A new royal castle in the Skenninge style? A sight 
for the city, or the devil may get me! What pride 
would be his to be just who he is!” 

Lindskidld seized Tessin by the arm in a lofty, 
threatening way, with a gesture as if he suddenly 
threw off a spattered masquerade cloak. 

“Tet him calm his ardor for a moon or so. To 


THE GREEN ‘CORRIDOR 19 


begin with, the chamberlain now kisses the hand of 
his chosen one, goes three steps backwards, makes 
a reverence, and then follows with me. Silent, when 
I talk in the halls of the king! Ekerot goes back to 
the dowager’s warder, blows out his lantern, wakes 
him with a sound and expressive box on the ear, and 
throws his shoes after him when he runs, so that he 
believes it is the night-goblins. Afterwards the gra- 
cious young lady returns unseen and tranquil to her 
room. It is fully determined that she, in due time, 
shall go along on a trip to Pomerania. Then the 
chamberlain overtakes her, and marries her in all 
secrecy. His Majesty I shall see to here at home. 
The Gottorp misfortune—I mean the royal dowa- 
ger—crafty woman — her the devil himself cannot 
control, but the high-noble set, them I’ve heard 
assessed before the Royal Commission, and I shall 
know them well enough to remind them what they 
are worth. New times are at hand here. Ah, my chil- 
dren, my children, if you knew how the breast fills, 
when one stands at the helm of state and steers ac- 
cording to distant beacons, whose name one dares 
not once utter to His Royal Majesty himself. But 
for the present, rely on my word. Here where we 
now stand, the chamberlain shall build his immor- 
tality.” 

Confusedly Tessin drew his hand to his lips, and 
when I had performed my errand with the war- 
der, he handed me, with a supercilious grimace. 


20 THE CHARLES MEN 


the two Palmstruch notes that hang there on the 
wall. 

“There you have your promised reward, if you 
are silent,” he said. 

But then began my visions and misfortunes, and 
when I sat sick in my room at home, my ailments 
became a by-word in the square — gout, lung 
trouble, snuff disease, accidental bullets in the leg — 
and buzzing in the head. And when I pulled out 
the Palmstruch notes which the dishonorable vil- 
lain stuck into my coat pocket, I found that they 
had lost all value many Lord’s years before. Report 
that now to His Royal Majesty’s person! 


Ekerot would have related still more, but there 
was a violent banging on the door, and a messenger 
called Hakon to the king, who was worse. 

Some days later, on the second day after Easter, 
people said that the king lay at the point of death, 
but Ekerot only nodded in his usual way as if it had 
all been known to him before. A crowd of men and 
maid-servants, who had been dismissed in the coun- 
try because of the famine, stood homeless and de- 
spairing on the streets in the snow,and Ekerot went 
from group to group with his hands in his coat 
tails, and listened and nodded. By night he com- 
posed letters of prophecy, which he then presented 
to the court pastor superior, Wallin. “The unfor- 
tunate,” he wrote, “care accustomed to see in the 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR 21 


darkness, so that in the end they can discern that 
which is dim and hidden to those blinded by the 
light of prosperity.” 

One windy April day, when he had just stuck his 
last letter of prophecy under Wallin’s entry doorand 
come home to his room, he sat down at the window 
and prattled with the squirrel. Now and then he 
chewed at some dried pears, which he picked out 
of a drawer. Just as he was sitting so, he heard the 
tocsin and alarm, and when he stretched himself 
out through the window, he saw the castle roof en- 
veloped in yellow smoke. Turning around to the 
room, he began to take down the coins from the 
wall, counting them accurately into his pocket. He 
trembled, and his teeth chattered, as, with the 
squirrel cage under one arm and the pewter pot 
under the other, he toddled down the stairs to the 
street. 

He was jostled against the house wall, and stood 
staring up at the castle, where roaring streaks of fire 
already spurted forth under the dark rafters. Soon 
all three of the wings flamed like huge bonfires, and 
the thunderous noise of the conflagration drowned 
the tocsin and the trumpet flourishes. 

“ Look, look!” he said. ‘ The night-goblins must 
out into the light of day. Look how they jump in 
rows along the roof-ridges with fire in their hands! 
Now they climb up on the tower roof and hop over 
the new Tessin addition, which disturbed their com- 


22 THE CHARLES MEN 


fort. They want to burn themselves in it. This is 
only the beginning. It will all burn—all.” 

Soldiers and warders thronged on the castle 
bridge amid barrels of water and itinerant chairs, 
cabinets, and paintings. Under the two lions that 
held the coat-of-arms above the door of the gate 
stepped forth Hedwig Eleonora, the mother of the 
Charleses. Two courtiers supported and almost car- 
ried her, for she shrunk together, and constantly 
wanted to stand still and look back. The wind raised 
the mantilla over her silver-gray hair, and the next 
moment drew it as a veil over her eyes red with 
weeping, her proud aquiline nose, and thickly 
painted cheeks. 

“The pyre is burning under your son’s body,” 
shouted Ekerot, pointing. “And the throne on 
which your grandson has ascended is burning, and 
before you close your eyes his whole realm shall be 
burned in ashes. Don’t you remember that he was 
born with blood on his hands?” 

He made his way anxiously along the wall and 
around the corner to Trangsund. Sparks rose to 
heaven like stars, and beyond the churchyard wall 
one saw the great castle tower called the Three 
Crowns, which rose four full stories above the high- 
est roof. With every story that the fire conquered, 
the smoke burst out through the loopholes as from 
cannon. That ’s the night-goblins, thought he, who 
fire victory salutes, while the citadel of the Vasa 


THE GREEN CORRIDOR 23 


kings is burning. Again and again, the smoke en- 
veloped the ancient arms of the realm on the spire 
of the tower—and again, dizzyingly high, gleamed 
forth the golden crowns, like three storm birds 
resting on their wings. The ringers of St. Nicho- 
las Church climbed up the steps to swing even the 
great bell and the preliminary bell, but when they 
heard the rumble, as the tower floors and vaulting 
plunged down together, pulling the spire and arms 
with them in the fall, they turned and fled. Smitten 
with terror, children and women began to sob and 
run, and it was told that people at the South Gate 
saw an insane man steal out with a squirrel cage and 
a pewter pot, singing in an undertone an old song 
of penance. 


A Sermon 


N Great Church the audience arose from their 

pews and looked toward the armory, before 
which Charles XII dismounted from his carriage. 

He was a handsome, but slender and undevel- 
oped boy. His hat, edged with plumes, sat comi- 
cally in its smallness upon the great curly peruke, 
and when the king stuck it under his arm, his ges- 
tures were nervous and embarrassed. He walked 
trippingly, a trifle bent in the knees, as was the 
fashion, and his eyes were lowered. His costume of 
mourning was precious with ermine on the facings 
and blonde lace around the gloves, and on his high- 
heeled shoes of cordovan leather he had buckles 
and ribbon rosettes. 

Bewildered by the inquisitive glances, he took his 
place in the royal pew, under the gilded crown up- 
borne by gent. He sat stiffly, facing the altar, but 
was unable to collect his thoughts around the sacred 
ceremonies. When, at last, the minister stepped into 
the pulpit and with an epigram and a vigorous blow 
on the back of the book aroused a subdued mur- 
mur, the king reddened and felt himself caught in 
the very act. Directly, however, his thoughts be- 
came the same rebels as they were just before, and 
went their own ways. To cover his shyness, he be- 
gan to pluck off the black points on the ermine. 

“ Took at un,” said a woman in one of the bot- 


A SERMON 25 


tom pews. “He still needs to wear out his father’s 
rod. Has the devil bit un i’ th’ fingers?” 

“‘'That ’s for her to say, the dirty wench, who has 
traipsed into a higher pew than belongs to her!” 
answered a grand lady, and pushed her headlong 
out into the aisle. 

The old man with a cane, who stood down by the 
door and had the office of going around and cuffing 
on the neck those of the congregation who went to 
sleep, tapped on the floor and menaced with his 
hand, but the scuffle was heard as far up as the 
pews of the nobility, so that the fine gentlemen 
turned their heads, and the preacher straightway in- 
terpolated the following words: 

“Concord, I said, Christian concord! Whither 
does she repair with her mild sweet-gruel? To the 
populace, perchance? Hold her fast! In God’s 
house or around His Royal Majesty’s own person, 
perchance? Well for him who finds her ! Therefore 
I say unto you, ye princes of the earth, seek dili- 
gently for concord and love, and lift not into strife 
the sword which God has placed in your hand, but 
lift it only for the defence of your subjects.” 

At this allusion the young king again blushed 
red and laughed shamefacedly. Even Hedwig Ele- 
onora, the queen dowager, in the royal pew just 
opposite to him, nodded simperingly, but the young 
princesses beside her laughed most of all. Ulrica 
FJeanora sat tolerably stiff, but Hedwig Sophia 


26 THE CHARLES MEN 


leaned forward with her slim long neck. In happy 
consciousness that she wore gloves, so that her mal- 
formed thumbs were not visible, she held the prayer- 
book in front of her mouth. 

The king now became bolder and looked around. 
In what a strange temple of the Lord he found 
himself on this day! The whole church was over- 
crowded with the furniture and objects of art which 
had been saved from the fire at the castle. Only 
the middle aisle was free. In the corner up by the 
altar stood, rolled up, Ehrenstrahl’s representa- 
tions of the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment, 
and behind the tomb of the Skyttes he recognized 
the plume-tufts and the green curtains from the 
bed on which his father, sitting crosswise and sup- 
ported on pillows, had given up the ghost. The 
recollection of this, however, moved him not, since 
he had scarcely felt for his father anything but fear. 
He had seen in him rather the deputy appointed 
by God than the dear blood-relation, and in his 
thoughts as in his speech he preferred to call him 
plainly and simply, the o/d king. Like two quest- 
ing bees, his eyes wandered over the numerous fa- 
miliar objects, and tarried long at last on a coat-of- 
arms on the nearest pillar. 

There, since several years, rested beneath the 
floor his teacher, Nordenhjelm, the good-hearted 
old Norcopensis whom he had loved with childish 


enthusiasm. He recalled hours of study early in 


A SERMON 27 


winter mornings, when he sat and learned the four 
branches of ciphering, and poked at the wick with 
the candle-snuffers, or when Nordenhjelm told sto- 
ries of the heroes of Greece and Rome. Since the 
old king’s death he had walked in a dream. He 
understood that he must not show gayety, that lam- 
entation was the only thing he had license to claim, 
but at the same time he saw that there were many 
who were quite ready in private to court his favor 
by.amusing him though attracting as little attention 
as possible, now with one prank, now with another. 
Even His Excellency Piper could at the same time 
dry his tears and beg the king not to forsake his 
youthful sports but play a game of shuttlecock. 
The gloomy, serious faces about him afflicted him 
sometimes, so that the tears sprang into his own 
eyes, but from the most secret depth of his boyish 
soul rose the dizzying, triumphal intoxication of vic- 
tory. The morose and stiff-necked old men whom 
he had formerly feared and shunned, he had sud- 
denly found humble and submissive. Sometimes at 
table, while they were sitting with their most anx- 
ious expression, he had audaciously filliped fruit 
seeds into their faces so as to see them laugh all at 
once, and then go away again and rangethemselves 
in a lugubrious ring around the queen dowager. 
The burning of the castle, with its adventures and 
dangers, had been for him a day of curiosity and 
excitement. It had even been almost the jolliest 


28 THE CHARLES MEN 


day he had yet had in his life, though he himself 
did not dare to think so. The affright of the others 
and his grandmother’s faintings had only made 
that wild spectacle the more strange and extraor- 
dinary. Now all the old life was done. The old king 
was dead, and his stronghold in ashes. All the new, 
all, all that Sweden longed for, should now mount 
on high with him like a flame of fire— and there 
he sat, lonesome and fourteen years old. 

It seemed to him next that Nordenhjelm stood 
at the pulpit behind the speaker and dictated the 
words. Only for an instant had the minister shaken 
the clown’s staff with bells so as to make himself 
intimate with his listeners. Then he addressed him- 
self to the king in sight of all the congregation, 
earnestly, strictly, yes, even commandingly. He re- 
quired him, in the name of God, not to let himself 
be led to vanity and pride by sycophants and 
hangers-on, but to dedicate his actions unselfishly 
to the unselfish people of Sweden, so that when, in 
the fullness of years, he closed his weary eyes, he 
might be followed by the blessings of thousands, 
and might enter into God’s glory. 

The voice of truth sang and thundered beneath 
the arches of the church, and a lump rose in the 
young king’s throat. He tried afresh to link his 
thoughts to other, indifferent things, but every 
word struck his upright childish heart, and he sat 
with bowed head. 


A SERMON 29 


It was a relaxation for him when the carriage took 
him again to Karlberg. There he bolted himself 
into his apartments, and not even the resolute 
summons of the dowager could induce him to go 
down to table. 

Inthe room outside his sleeping-chamber lay the 
books which were used in his rarer and rarer les- 
son-hours. Already he liked to philosophize overthe 
riddles of creation, and he was always fascinated 
by the sciences, but he began to despise books like 
a merry troubadour intoxicated with life. The up- 
permost work dealt with geography, and, after 
turning the page back and forth, he threw it to 
one side. Then, vehemently and at random, he 
drew out instead the bottom book. With it he re- 
mained sitting. 

It was broken at the corners and severely worn, 
and the contents was only a few manuscript pages 
with the evening prayers that he had learned to 
recite as a child. Many sentences and words had 
already been frozen out of his memory, but as he 
now saw the familiar lines before him, he needed 
only to read them through two or three times to 
know them by heart. 

In the evening he ate only a cup of beer-soup, 
and the warders then began to undress him. He 
bore his violent emotions with such propriety that 
they only thought he was tired, and when they 
lifted the peruke from his short-clipped and dark- 


30 THE CHARLES MEN 


brown, somewhat wavy hair, and he climbed up in 
his shirt into the great bed, he looked like a little 
irl. 

: The dog Pompey crept up by his feet, and be- 
low the foot of the bed a lighted candle was set in 
a basin of silver filled with water. The king was 
afraid of the dark, and it had therefore become the 
custom that the door to the outer room should 
be left open, and that a page or playmate should 
spend the night there. This evening, however, the 
king ordered with decision that the door hereafter 
should be closed. Only when they heard that did 
the warders begin to wonder and become uneasy, 
noticing that he was disturbed in spirit. 

“Ah bah!” grumbled old Hakon, the faithful 
servant from his father’s days, who obstinately con- 
tinued to treat the king as a child. “To what shall 
that serve?” 

“It shall beas I have said,” answered the king. 
“« And from to-morrow on the night-light 1s not ne- 
cessary either.” 

The warders bowed as they went backwards 
from the sleeping apartment, but when Hakon had 
closed the door, he sat down on the threshold out- 
side. One of the warders, who was named Hult- 
man, also remained there standing. They heard how 
the king turned and threw himself on the mattress, 
and when Hakon finally stretched himself up to 
the keyhole, he saw indistinctly in the glimmer 


A SERMON 31 


of the night-light that his young lord was sitting 
upright in bed. 

Gusts of the night wind roared and rattled out 
on the castle terrace and in the lindens of Karl- 
berg Park, but within doors it was already hushed 
and still. Yet Hakon thought,to his wonderment, 
that he could distinguish a muffled, almost whis- 
pering human voice, and even detached words. He 
became attentive and listened. 

He heard then that the king recited with half- 
raised voice the prayers he had taught himself to 
pray in his earliest childhood. 

“Teach me to control myself and not to be mis- 
led by flattering talk to presumption and self-will, 
and thereby to sin against the regard which I owe 
to God and men.” 

Old Hakon brought his knees together and 
clasped his hands for prayer, and, through the still- 
ness and the soft rustle of the blast, he heard con- 
tinually the words of the king. 

“Though the son of a king and hereditary heir 
to a mighty kingdom, I yet would always humbly 
consider that these things are a special grace and 
blessing of God, on which account I must strive 
after Christian virtues and knowledge, so that | 
may become skilful and worthy in so great a call- 
ing. Almighty Lord, Thou who dost raise up kings 
and put them down, teach me ever to obey Thy 
commands, so that I may never to my own ruin 


a2 THE CHARLES MEN 


and the oppression of others misuse the power that 
Thou lendest me. For Thy holy name’s sake. 
Amen.” 


The Successor to the Throne 
OW dull it was! How long were the days at 


the little court, where the black-clad coun- 
cillors of state yawned in armchairs and stared in 
front of them, as if they pondered how it was that 
they were similarly shod on both feet, and had not 
a jack-boot on one and a silken slipper on the other. 
And so they yawned again—and out on the stair- 
way the warders yawned, and down in the kitchen 
the cooks tasted the viands with their fingers in 
the grease, and said to one another: “Is that sour 
enough, so that the great gentlemen will at once 
make wry faces?” 

The coachmen harnessed horses with black 
plumes and ribbons in front of black carriages. 
Black broadcloth was being cut out or sewed on 
all the tables. In the church on Grayfriars’ Island, 
where the old king had been interred, the black 
canopies and tapestries still hung, and the king’s 
funeral knell was heard far out into the country. 
When, finally, the coronation train moved forth 
over the snowy streets, all went in mourning, and 
only the young king wore his purple. The echo of 
the last festal salutes had hardly rolled over Tysk- 
bagareberg, before the same intolerable dulness 
again settled over the throne in the dark Yuletide 
days. 

Then, one sullen gray noon, the dowager’s mas- 


34 THE CHARLES MEN 


ter cook stamped on the floor. In his hands he held 
a pot with boiled tomatoes. 

“ Ach, du Lieber! There’ssomething todo here to- 
day. His Grace, the Duke of Holstein, who is to be 
expected here shortly, has sent us a costly gift. Her 
Majesty and Mistress Greta Wrangel have already 
tasted the fruit, and Tessin, who is a travelled man, 
is coming down into the kitchen himself to advise 
us in the preparation. Don’t stand there gaping, 
boys. Dishclothsto the saucepans! Ruband polish!” 

The remote little court in the outermost corner 
of the world had that day gotten something to think 
of. At table the talk was of nothing else than the 
tomatoes, and each and all had something to say 
about their smell and flavor. Meanwhile there was 
drinking, and the old councillors who had been in- 
vited, growing mellow, forgot their intrigues and 
said drolly agreeable things to one another. 

After the meal the king took Councillor Lars 
Wallenstedt by the coat-button, and led him along 
to the window recess, like a panting grumble-bear 
with a ring through its -nose, 

“Tell me,” inquired the king earnestly, “how 
should a prince sacrifice himself for his people? 
That sermon of last spring never leaves my mind.” 

Wallenstedt had the habit when he talked of 
puffing out his lips as if he were saying “‘ Pooh!”’ 

Accustomed to the king’s precocious and pene- 
trating questions, he answered: ‘A prince should 


THE SUCCESSOR. TO: THE THRONE. 35 


sacrifice all small misgivings, gather all power to 
himself, become his people’s archetype and will. 
That was truly a pious discourse we heard that 
time in church, but does not the Most Reverend 
Bishop Spegel say that subjects should be as thralls 
to their lord? The councillors and nobles now 
quarrel but for their share of the power since the 
time of Your Majesty’s revered father. And Ox- 
enstjerna and Gyllenstjerna and—ah, well—they 
have their ears to the ground. But it was for that 
reason I always ventured to support Your Ma- 
jesty’s will that even at your youthful years you 
should shift the heavy weight of government from 
the shoulders of Her Majesty the queen dowager.”’ 

When Cronhjelm, the king’s tutor, who stood 
in the recess, heard the words about the weight of 
government, he wrote with his finger on the moist- 
ure of the window-pane: “The old woman feels 
that burden as deliciously light as her head-dress.”’ 

“Yes, yes, my dear Wallenstedt,”’ the king mean- 
while answered. “I, too, have always felt within me 
that my will urged me in that direction. On Atland’s 
throne a man must sit. It 1s a wondrous trouble- 
some thing to will. How is that? To-day I feel that 
I will ride to Kungsor and hunt bears. But why? 
I might equally well will something else. Will is to 
me a fetter, a chain drawn tight around my breast, 
from which I cannot twist myself free. It is the mas- 
ter, and I am the servant.’ 


36 THE CHARLES MEN 


Wax candles were already lighted when he 
stepped into his outer apartment. On the table 
stood the sealed iron box in which the old king 
had deposited his final secret and fatherly instruc- 
tions. Many days had elapsed since the retiring 
guardians of the realm had let it leave their hands, 
but he had not yet been able to bring himself to 
open the lid. One night, to be sure, he had violently 
torn off the seal, but he had then shrunk back. 
This evening he felt that the will was come. 

But when he set the key in the rattling iron, his 
old fear of the dark fell upon him. He saw before 
him the old king’s coffin of tin, on which had just 
fallen the spadefuls of earth, and it came over him 
that now he was to stand eye to eye with the dead. 
He called in Hakon, and bade him lay wood on the 
fire. Meanwhile he turned the key, threw back the 
lid, and with chilly trembling unfolded the closely 
written paper. 

“Take the power into your own hand,” stood 
there, “and beware of the great lords who are about 
you, of whom many have French stomachs. Those 
who chatter most eagerly hanker only after their 
own interests, and the best at times keep their own 
counsel.” 

When he had read to the end the anxious and 
mistrustful warnings of the departed, he did not no- 
tice that Hakon had left the apartment. 

Now he was lord over all the land of Sweden. 


CHE SUCCESSOR | lO. THE THRONE «37 


The high dignitaries haa thronged outside his door 
to declare him of age. Did they even know them- 
selves whether their words were dictated by the 
hope of favor or by pure intentions? Did they not 
love him more than they did their own sons or 
brothers? But nevertheless he could not talk famil- 
iarly with these old men, who weighed and adjusted 
their speech. And could he talk with those of his 
own age, a crowd of shyly courteous playmates, 
who knew naught of the affairs of the day? Alone 
he went about as never before, and alone he had 
to carry the old king’s sceptre. Nothing could be 
greater than Sweden, and of all Sweden’s kings he 
willed to be the foremost and best. Had he not re- 
ceived a token of it from the hands of Almighty 
God, in that he was exalted to be a ruler so young, 
with the many years of a long life before him? The 
old, which had brought down the wrath of God, 
was now passed away. Song rose on high, there was 
jubilation of drums and trumpets. 

He arose, and his hand fell with a light blow on 
the edge of the table. 

Piper was right. Piper had said that Sweden was 
a great realm with a little court in a smal] town at 
the world’s end. There was to be no more of that. 
He had himself set the crown upon his head, and 
had ridden to church with it. Had he not already 
received it from God at the hour of his birth, on 
the June morning when the glittering star of the 


38 THE CHARLES MEN 


Lion’s Heart ascended above the rim of the east? 
The floor-cloth on the streets, in which his horses’ 
hoofs had beaten holes, he had given to the peas- 
antry for clothing, but the nobles had had to go on 
foot, and the very councillors of state had borne 
his canopy and waited on him like warders. Why 
should he dissimulate, why should he confer honor 
on men whom he did not honor in his soul? Had 
he ever given a royal charter? The Estates, but not 
he, had had to take oath. His kingly vow he had 
sworn in silence before God, as he stood at the altar. 
Now, now was he lord over all the land of Sweden! 

He went to the hanging mirror, eyed compla- 
cently the small pock-marks in his girlish skin, and 
compressed with his fingers the stern furrow in his 
brow. 

Then he pointed into space, sat himself astride 
on a chair, and galloped around the room. 

“ Forward, boys, inane for your king! Jump, 
Brilliant, jump, jump! 

He imagined he was riding over a meadow 
against the enemy and that hundreds of bullets 
struck him on the breast, but fell flattened in the 
grass. Round about on the heights stood specta- 
tors, and at a distance the very king of France came 
on a white horse and waved his hat. 

In the hall below, the old dignitaries still stood 
in conversation. When they heard the racket, they 
were still a moment and listened, but Cronhjelm 


THE. SUCCESSOR FO: THE FPHRONE- 39 


wrote in the moisture and grumbled half aloud: 
“That is only His Majesty who is occupied with 
the management of the realm. He is devising marks 
of favor for us in return for declaring him of age.” 

Wallenstedt blew out his lips and gave him a 
furious glance. 

When the king had galloped all around his room, 
a sudden recollection struck him, and he went to 
the door. 

“ Klinckowstrom!”’ he cried, “‘ Klinckowstrom, 
can you tell me why I have just now taken such a 
fancy for riding to Kungsor and hunting bears?” 

Klinckowstrom, a merry page with red cheeks 
and a light tongue, answered: “‘ Because it’s pitch 
dark and infernal weather, and because no bear is 
started, so that hunting 1s impossible. Shall I give 
orders for horses and torch-riders?” 

‘“‘ Have you any better suggestion?” 

‘‘All other suggestions are better, but—” 

“No, you are right. We must ride to Kungsor 
just because it seems impossible, and because we 
Wille tees 

When, a little later, the king rode down Queen 
Street, he passed close to a suburban place which 
extended below St. Clare’s churchyard to a yel- 
low-painted house. There an old widow known 
as Mother Malin kept an inn. The grounds were 
fenced in with boards, on which the builders at 
work on the castle, when in summer they emptied 


oe THE CHARLES MEN 


their glasses at Mother Malin’s, had painted arches 
of triumph and obelisks and dancing Italians. In 
one corner lay a pleasure-house having a fireplace 
and chimney. One window was on Queen Street, 
the other faced inward on plum trees and flower- 
beds, now covered with snow. For several weeks 
Mother Malin had daily carried food to the plea- 
sure-house, but no one of her old customers knew 
anything with certainty as to the guest she lodged 
within. At a sale of a noble family, whom narrowed 
circumstances had bowed to the earth, she had pur- 
chased for her guest a piano, and in the evenings 
behind the closed shutters were heard strange mel- 
odies, accompanied by a weak and delicate voice. 

Just as the king’s torch-bearers approached, 
Mother Malin was standing at a crevice of the 
planks, looking out upon the dark street. 

“It’s he himself,” she burst out, and thumped 
on the door of the pleasure-house. “It’s the king 
that’s coming. Put out the light and peep through 
the heart in the shutter!” 

At that moment the king dashed by in wild career. 

‘““So handsome he is o’ the cheeks, the gracious 
young lord!” she said, and went down again to her 
inn. “And pure and holy is his life, too. But why 
should he tempt God and set the crown on his head 
with his own hands? That’s why he slipped on the 
way, and the box of sacred ointment thudded on 
the floor of the church.” 


THE SUCCESSOR “TO” THE“ ERBRONES “4a 


The night went by, and so did month after 
month. In the garden the chestnut trees became 
green again, as well as the plum trees behind the 
barberry and currant bushes. The Maypole was 
raised, and the court drove by to Karlberg. 

Beside the king sat the Duke of Holstein, who 
had come to marry his sister, Princess Hedwig So- 
phia,and makean end of the intolerable dulness. As 
they drove past the pleasure-house, he happened 
by accident to throw a glance through the wide 
open window. 

In the evening came a man with his cape-collar 
up, who knocked stealthily at the inn, but Mother 
Malin regarded him mistrustfully. “ Be off to the 
devil with your cape-collar!”’ said she. 

He laughed loudly and talked broken Swedish. 

‘““T lie here on one of the German galleons, and 
would but have a mug of berry juice in your gar- 
den. Schnell!” 

He thrust a couple of coins into her hand and 
pushed her aside. She was near to giving him a 
blow, but, as 1t was, she counted her money and 
thought things over. She put the mug of syrup on 
the earthen bench in the garden, but she herself 
sat behind the half-closed shutters to keep the new 
customer under her eyes. 

He sipped a little at the juice, wrote with his heel 
on the sand, and looked about him. When he had 
sat awhile and thought himself unobserved, he 


42 THE CHARLES MEN 


arose and turned down his collar. He was a young, 
handsome gentleman, of a daring and merry ap- 
pearance, and he walked slowly along the path. 

“Tmpudent villain!” muttered Mother Malin. 
“1 vow he’s going to knock at the door of the 
pleasure-house.”’ 

When the door remained shut, he shrank several 
paces aside to the open window, and stuck his hat 
under his arm in knightly fashion. Then he sat on 
the window-sill and spoke softly and eagerly. 

With that Mother Malin’s patience gave way, 
and she went out. She walked on the sand path, 
twisting a thread of yarn between her fingers and 
holding her head slyly bent forward. Meanwhile 
she meditated on the abuse which she should utter. 
But when she had gone a little way, the young gen- 
tleman flew from out the barberry hedge, and roared 
with the most disrespectful wrath, ‘Ha, you crone, 
march! Iam the Duke of Holstein. But not a word 
of this!” 

Mother Malin was so astonished that she could 
only turn completely around and smite herself on 
the knee. Again, when shewent back into the house, 
she smote her knee,and could not comprehend that 
it was she, precisely, in her little abode, who had 
come to experience anything so great and extraor- 
dinary. 

It then happened often in the bright, summer 
evenings, when the chestnuts stood without show- 


THE SUCCESSOR TO -TAE hORONE . a3 


ing a breath of wind, that the duke came to the 
place. The door of the pleasure-house was never 
opened, no matter how insinuatingly he rapped, 
but he sat on the window-sill; and Mother Malin, 
who had meanwhile got a shining ducat in her 
kirtle-pocket, served there both syrup and wine, 
and once even a raisin-cake, on which she had writ- 
ten with white of egg: “No prince on earth has 
nobler worth.” 

On this particular evening the duke tarried 
longer than at other times, and within the plea- 
sure-house the piano sounded. 

As he finally rose to go, he said: ‘‘ Power, power! 
Why to be sure, all cry out for it. Why should you 
alone be silent? Consider that your father has played 
away his last sovereign. Adieu, adieu! If you fail 
with the lion, you bid fair next to hold the door 
open for the wolf.” 

The duke stood before the window. It was hushed 
and still, for down at the inn all had by now gone 
to bed. 

“You do not answer,” he continued. “ Is it shy- 
ness? Then answer with a sign. One stroke on the 
piano means Yes, but if you trill with your little 
finger-tips it means No, irrevocably No.” 

He went lingeringly down the path. The night 
heavens were bright, the ground without shadow, 
and he felt about in a gooseberry bush without 
being able to find any fruit. Then a chord sounded 


44 THE CHARLES MEN 


softly from the piano. He pressed his hat down on 
his head, drew his cloak about him, and hastened 
from the garden with cheerful steps. 

After that night, Mother Malin went about in 
vain waiting to open the gate at dusk for the great 
lord. In ill humor, she began at last to draw from her 
pocket and count over the ducats, and she cursed 
herself because she had not at the right time known 
how to entice to her yet more. 

Meanwhile, one evening, a barber’s widow had 
been buried 1n the churchyard of St. Clare, and after 
the twelve torch-bearers had gone, two journeymen 
remained to keep watch. They sat on planks by the 
grave and spoke ill of the house of mourning. 

“They ought to smart for it. The old hag lay 
covered in a cambric bonnet with crape ribbons, like 
a noble, and both spice-cakes and preserves stood 
on the table, but here to us they have n't even sent 
a stoop of small beer.” 

- “T see across the wall that light is shining through 
the heartin Mother Malin’s shutters. Should n’t we 
go there and knock?” 

They went out on the street to the yellow wooden 
house and thumped on the tin. 

Mother Malin set one of the shutters ajar. 

“You come just in the nick of time, lads,” said 
she, when she recognized them. ‘‘ No one has treats 
to offer in these days, but you can earn a pretty 
penny.” 


THE SUCCESSOR. “LO” THE. HRONE, 45 

She pushed open the shutter still further and 
lowered her voice. 

“Here you have each of you a whole Charles- 
piece. Yes, look at it, you noisy lads; it'll stand 
taking hold of. Within here stands a royal page, 
who is soon coming down to you. At dawn, as 
usual, some night-cuckoos from the court are to 
ride by here. Pretend then to trip up and thrash 
the young gentleman, and afterwards take to your 
heels. That’s all.” 

“That seems right enough,” said the journey- 
men, and thumbed the coins. “The hardest thing 
will be not to lay on in the excitement so that it 
cuts; 

They went back to the churchyard gate and 
waited, and they heard Mother Malin whispering 
with the page up in the room. 

The time grew long. A star flamed over the dead- 
house in the summer heat, the fire-watch called on 
Brunkeberg, and the dawn drew near. 

There was a creaking and squeaking on Mother 
Malin’s steps, and the page, walking with knees 
somewhat turned in and arranging the buttons of 
his coat, came down to the journeymen. 

In the alley off Queen Street was heard roister- 
ing and trampling of horses. First rode Klinckow- 
strom, who was so drunk that he had to hold him- 
self on by his horse’s mane. Behind him could be 
seen the king, the Duke of Holstein, and some ten 


46 THE CHARLES MEN 
other riders. All had blades in their hands, and all 


but the king were in only their shirts. He was mad 
with drink, and with his sword knocked in win- 
dow-panes, lifted off signboards, and cut at wooden 
doors. There was no one now in the whole world 
whom he need obey. He could now do anything 
whatever that occurred to him, and no one would 
have a single word of reproach. Let them but dare! 
At supper he had struck the dishes from the pages’ 
hands and thrown fragments of cake on his com- 
rades’ clothes, so that they had white marks as from 
snowballs. The intolerable old was now done with. 
The old men might yawn and clear their throats 
by their snuff-jars as they pleased. They had no 
longer anything to attend to but to be fools. He 
dedicated his old kingdom of bears to joy and the 
spirit of youth. The whole of Europe should be 
amazed. Now he was lord over all the land of 
Sweden! 

Meanwhile the unknown page had laid himself 
on the ground in the churchyard gate, and the jour- 
neymen pinched and beat to their heart’s content, 
and clutched at his throat. 

‘“Who’s there?”’ shouted the king, and set upon 
the journeymen, who straightway fled between 
grave-mounds and crosses. He was close at their 
heels, and stabbed one of them several times in the 
left arm, so that the blood dripped. At last, in de- 
fence, they lifted one of the planks by the half- 


LAE SUCCESSOR. FO -THE-PHRONE: 47 
filled grave of the barber’s widow. Then the king 
laughed and rode back to the wicket gate. 

“One of ours?” he inquired of the unknown, 
who had picked himself up again. “‘ What, are you 
so tipsy that you don’t even know our password: 
Snuff on all perukes? No matter. Sit up behind our 
friend Klinckan, and hold him fast on his Wallach. 
Forward!” 

Singing and hallooing, the shirt-clad band dashed 
on along street and hillside, waving and making 
long noses at the sleep-dazed folk who came to the 
gates. When the panes tinkled about Chief Mar- 
shal Stenbock, that most worthy old man went 
himself to the window in his dressing-gown and, 
bowing, began to lament that, at last, it was neces- 
sary for him to flee the realm. But the king tore 
his wig from him, and cut it in two halves with his 
sword. 

“This is life!’” shouted the Duke of Holstein. 
“Hats in the air! If we could only take along all 
the royal lady wooers who sit and peep in their 
bed-chambers. Wigs in the air! Rise in your stir- 
rups and piddle over your horses’ heads! Soho, 
boys! Devil take you. Vivat Carolus, king of Swe- 
den and of scandals!” 

Shirts were fluttering out; hats, wigs, and gloves 
lay on the street; hoofs struck sparks, and the 
horses rushed forward as tn a fire. 

When the wild riders had come back to the 


48 THE CHARLES MEN 


castle, they sprang from their saddles, and let the 
horses run as best they could. Upon the stairs they 
broke the lampshades and fired pistol shots at a 
marble Venus. 

“Vorwarts!” shouted the king, as he stormed 
with all his following into the chapel, and slashed 
amain at the pews. “They shall get splintersin their 
breeches here 0’ Sunday.” 

The duke pounded on the floor demanding si- 
lence, and Klinckowstrém, who had set to throw- 
ing dice in the circle of the altar, held his hand over 
his mouth so as to keep still. 

“Dearly beloved listeners!” began the duke. 
“Nothing could make this earnest occasion more 
solemn than if my exalted and charming brother- 
in-law in this morning hour would give us, his 
faithful servants, a hint as to the choice of his heart. 
Let us speak of ladies that woo! Let us think of 
the baggage from Bavaria who scampered all the 
way hither with her sweet mother, though there 
was hardly any lodging for her after the castle was 
burned. Oohoo! says the owl. Only eight little 
tulip-red summers older than Your Majesty. Or of 
the Princess of Wurtemburg, who already showed 
her amorousness by paying suit to Your Majesty’s 
father of most blessed memory, and who is sickly 
in the chest. Don’t cough during the ceremony! Or 
of the Princess of Mechlenburg-Grabow, who with 
her mother is also supposed to be climbing into her 


THE SUCCESSOR TO THE THRONE 49 


travelling-coach. Or of the Prussian princess, who 
is only two never-so-little sugar-grain years older; 
or the Danish princess, the tooty-tooty little pink- 
and-gold bird, who is only five small rose-leaf years 
older. All of them are bent upon wooing, and 
sprucing themselves up, and beautifying their pic- 
tures, because their love afflicts them full sore.” 

The king became abashed and replied, “‘ Have 
I not always said that surely no man need think 
of being married before he is forty?”’ 

As the duke noted his embarrassment, he winked 
at the page from the inn and pounded anew on the 
floor. 

“Very good. His Majesty of Sweden will not 
parcel out his glory and the love of his subjects in 
anything else than manly courage and joy. Snuff 
on all wigs! Were I the monarch of the Swedes, I 
should therefore frighten the old fellows out of their 
wits by summoning the prettiest ladies and minxes 
to my festivities. Potztausend! They should sit be- 
fore us on the saddle and stay with us till the cock 
crowed the third time. But, as if I would talk any 
longer! Set your knees to the pew-ends! Hey! Beat 
and break, snap and crack! Stamp on the floor !— 
Herr Gott, bring water! The king is sick. Water or 
wine —just wine —wine!”’ 

The king had grown pale, and put his hand to 
his forehead. It was nothing to him that the others 
were flaming red and reeled about. At bottom, per- 


50 THE CHARLES MEN 


haps, he loved none of them deeply. What did it 
matter if they called one another drunken? But 
never should any such thing be said of him, the 
chosen of God. 

“That’s enough now, boys!” he said, trying to 
thrust his sword into the scabbard, whereupon he 
noticed that he had lost it. Instead, therefore, he 
very calmly stuck the weapon through the skirt of 
his coat, and walked with resolute step toward the 
door. 

The duke seized the unknown page by the arm, 
whispered, and made signs with his hands. The 
page hurried immediately after the king, opened 
the door for him, and followed him upstairs. 

“‘Never shall I taste wine again!” thought the 
king. “I could not bear if people said that I stut- 
tered in my speech and held pages to my breast. 
Why should I after that be respected more than 
they? And wine does not taste so much better than 
small beer. That depends on habit. A really wise 
man drinks water.” 

They went togetheralong the stairs and corridors, 
and came,at length, to his sleepingapartment. Here 
Wallenstedt and a couple of other high nobles were 
already waiting. Wallenstedt puffed up his lips. 

“Six o’clock in the morning,” he began, “‘is the 
usual time for us to consider the affairs of govern- 
ment.’ 

““Tf it concerns a criminal matter, yes,’ answered 


THE SUCCESSOR: TO THE. THRONE. ~s51 


the king; ‘otherwise I will receive no counsel, but 
will regulate and decide as seems to me right.” 

He did not pick up the poker, as did his father. 
He was as wakefully solicitous about his dignity 
as a nobly-born young lady about court propriety. 
Smiling and bowing, he went straight up to the 
gentlemen, so that they had to leave the room 
backwards. 

“That is our return for setting a boy on the 
throne,” they dinned maliciously into the ears of 
Wallenstedt. 

The page, however, had already locked the door 
behind them with a subdued bang. That pleased the 
king. He stood leaning against the end of the high 
bed beside the casket in which his father had gath- 
ered together jewels and valuables of all sorts, and 
which had now been fetched up from the treasure- 
vault known as the Elephant. 

“Wihat is: your name?” he asked “the page. 
“Why don’t you answer?” 

The page breathed hard, fumbling and plucking 
at his clothes. 

“Well, but answer me, boy! You know your own 
name, I suppose. You stand almost with your back 
to me so that I cannot see you.” 

The page now stepped forward into the middle 
of the room, lifted the peruke from his head, tossed 
it on the night-table, and answered: “ My name is 


Rhoda— Rhoda d’ F lleville.”’ 


G2 THE CHARLES’ MEN 


The king saw that it was a very young girl with 
dark-pencilled eyebrows. Her yellow hair was 
crisply curled with a curling-iron, anda lightly shad- 
owed line trembled around her mouth. 

She sprang forward, threw her arms about his 
neck, and impetuously kissed him on the left cheek. 

For the first time the youth of sixteen lost his 
self-command. Flames rose before his eyes, his 
cheek became grayish-white, and his hands hung 
impotent. He only saw that the page’s coat was 
unbuttoned over the breast, so that lace was hang- 
ing-from it. She continued to hold him fast in her 
arms, and pressed a long kiss upon his mouth. 

He neither responded to it nor made resistance. 
He only raised his hands little by little and lifted 
her arms back over his head like a ring. Then, 
stammering,and bowing deeply and ceremoniously, 
he moved aside. 

“Pardon, mademoiselle!’’ He scraped with his 
foot, clicked his heels,and, bowing again with each 
step, moved still further away. “ Pardon, made- 
moiselle, pardon!” 

How thoroughly had she not studied beforehand 
every word she meant to say! But now she remem- 
bered nothing. She spoke at random and without 
herself any longer knowing what she said. 

“Mercy, sire! The good God may be excused if 
He punishes such presumption as mine.” 

She bent her knee to the carpet. 


THE SUCCESSOR. “LO, THE: THRONE. 53 


“| have seen you on horseback, sire; I have seen 
you from my window. In imagination I have seen 
you, before I made the long journey up here, have 
seen my hero, my Alexander.” 

At once he went forward to her, took her under 
the elbows, and conducted her in precocious cava- 
lier fashion to a chair. 

SNoOtsO.not s0.-51ts.sit 

She kept hold of his hand, and wrinkled her 
brow a little, as she looked him brightly in the eyes 
—and then she burst into a ringing laugh of relief. 

“Ah, well, you are human after all, sire. Not a 
trace of the preacher. Youare the first Swede I have 
met who understands that the eyes of virtue look 
inward and do not evilly squint at others. Your 
favorites drink and throw dice and pay attentions 
to women without your saying anything about 
it. You barely notice it. Let us speak of virtue, 
sire. 

Perfume, the scent of her hair, of a woman, tor- 
tured him so violently that he was near to vomiting. 
The contact, the feel of her warm hand, nauseated 
him like touching a rat or a corpse. He believed 
himself offended and defiled both as the king, spe- 
cially chosen of God, and as a man in that a stranger 
had touched his clothes and face and hands. An- 
other, and that a woman, had taken hold of him 
as of a prey,a conquered captive. The person who 
had touched him straightway became an enemy, 


54 THE CHARLES MEN 


with whom he wished to fight, whom he wished to 
strike down in punishment of lese-majesty. 

“When I was yet but a child,” she continued, 
“my confessor fell in love with me. He wrung his 
hands and strove with himself and babbled prayers, 
and I played with the madman and made a fool of 
him. Sire, how different you are from him! You 
never strive with yourself. You are wholly and 
completely indifferent, sire. That is all. Virtue with 
you 1s so innate that’’—she laughed playfully — 
“T do not know if I can even call it virtue.” 

He tried to twist his hand free, and exerted his 
strength more and more. How had not the duke, 
the pages, and the warders dinned in his ears about 
lady wooers and pretty mamselles in the last weeks! 
Was this, too, a game behind his back? Should he, 
then, have no peace? 

“ Pardon, mademoiselle!”’ 

“T know, sire, that for whole hours you can sit 
and turn over Tessin’s etchings, and that you look 
especially at pictures with tall young ladies. That 
is perhaps only the esteem for art which you have 
inherited from your noble lady grandmother; but 
will it always remain so? I am no dead representa- 
tion, sire.” 

Though bowing constantly, he now tore himself 
free with such vehemence that at the same time he 
jerked Rhoda d’Elleville up from the chair. 


“No, you are a live page, mademoiselle, and the 


THE sUCCESSOR TO- THE THRONE “55 


page I order to go down into the chapel and send 
the comrades to the east anteroom.” 

She saw at once that the game was hopelessly 
lost, and the shadowed expression around her 
mouth became deeper and more weary. 

“The page must obey,” answered she. 

When the king was left alone, he became again 
tranquil as before. Only at times there passed over 
his thoughts a flash of indignation. The unexpected 
adventure had chased the wine fumes from his 
head, and he wished not to go to rest like a weak- 
ling after the pranks of the night, but to continue 
them hour after hour. 

He threw off his coat. In his shirt-sleeves, with 
sword in hand, he went out to his comrades in the 
east anteroom. 

This room was sprinkled with dried stains of 
blood. The boards of the floor had been drenched 
and embrowned with pools of blood, and by the 
portraits on the wall, whose eyes were poked out, 
hung lumps of hair and of long-congealed blood. 

In the room outside a lowing was heard. A calf 
was led in and brought forward to the middle of 
the floor. 

The king bit his under lip so that it grew white, 
and with a single whistling blow struck off the calf’s 
head. With blood oozing under his nails, he then 
threw the head through the broken window down 
on the passers-by. 


56 THE CHARLES MEN 


Outside the door, meanwhile, the duke whis- 
pered hurriedly with Rhoda d’Elleville. 

“So no one is likely to get my exalted brother- 
in-law out of his stiff-neckedness. Old Hjarne of 
the funny face talks of cooking a love potion, but 
that ’s likely to be of little avail. Had he not inher- 
ited his father’s coldness, he would with his bra- 
vado have become a Swedish Borgia. If he can’t 
soon get to be a demi-god, he’ll become a devil. 
When such a bird doesn’t find flapping-room for 
its wings, it breaks apart the walls of its own nest. 
Hist! Some one’s coming. Don’t forget! This 
evening at nine at Mother Malin’s. Have on hand 
some figs and raisins!” 

Behind them on the stairs came faithful old 
Hakon, leading two goats. He stood still, threw 
his hands aloft, and sighed anxiously: 

“What have they made of my young lord? 
Never has such a thing been seen in the home of 
Sweden’s kings. Almighty God, have pity and give 
us yet greater misfortune than before, because the 
quiet that has now come upon us can be borne 
neither by the Swedes nor by such a prince!” 


Midsummer Sport 


WO little girls stood in a pasture with a sieve, 

and near by, on a mossy stone, lazy and half- 
asleep, sat their brother, Axel Frederick, who to- 
day completed his twentieth year. His intended, 
the frightened little Ulrica, who had come to the 
place ona visit, bent down juniper twigs over the 
sieve and cut at them with her sickle. The little 
girls spread their hands to hold the twigs and help 
all they could, and melting snow dripped from the 
birches and alders. 

“Oh, oh, even grandfather has come out in this 
heavenly weather,” said Ulrica, pointing down at 
the great house. 

The little girls then began to shout and hop. 
They took the sieve between them and went off to 
the great house, while they swung the sieve in time 
and warbled: 

The birds of springtime, they sing so well. 
Come little goat-girls, come! 
To-night well have music and dance in the dell. 


On the other side of the fence, where the neigh- 
bor’s land began, Elias, the farm-servant, brought 
down the last load of wood from the forest. The 
water dripped from his wooden shoes, and the two 
red oxen, Silverhorn and Yeoman, had sprigs of 
rowan in their yoke as a protection against witch- 
cratt. Elias, too, began to join in: 


58 THE CHARLES MEN 
The birds of springtime they sing so light. 


Come, my goat, oh, come! 


The flowers will push through the turf to-night. 


But with that he broke off and, bending over the 
fence, said to Axel Frederick, ‘“ Powder smells ill 
when people shoot, and soot falls from the chim- 
neys, so surely the thaw will last.” 

The entry of the great house was covered with 
a snowy thatch of turf, where in summer a goat was 
wont to browse among the house-leeks and lime- 
wort. Below on the bench sat grandfather in his 
gray frock coat with pewter buttons, and Ulrica led 
forward the little girls so that they might greet 
him. They were clad in basted-up smocks, which 
were home-dyed with whortleberry juice, and every 
time the little girls curtsied, they made lilac circles 
on the wet steps of the stairs. 

Grandfather patted Ulrica on the cheek with the 
back of his hand. 

“You will grow upintime no doubt, little one, 
and become a help to Axel Frederick.” 

“Tf I were only quite certain of it, grandfather. 
It is so big here, and there is so much to manage 
that I am not accustomed to.” 

«Ah, yes. And pity it is for Axel Frederick that 
he lost both father and mother so early,and had no 
one but his aunts and his old grandfather. But still 
we have looked after him in every way, and you, 
little one, must of course learn to take our place. 


MIDSUMMER SPORT 59 


The hardest thing 1s his frail health, the fine boy. 
— Ah, dear children, God be thanked for this day 
of spring and for blessed years of peace!”’ 

Grandfather felt of the cut juniper and praised 
it because it was moist, so that it would take up a 
great deal of dust. 

Behind himin the kitchen window stood the two 
aunts, cooking a mash of castoreum and laurel ber- 
ries for a sick heifer. Both of them had plain black 
clothes and ice-gray hair combed back. 

“Why isn’t Axel Frederick with you?” they 
asked of Ulrica. ‘‘ Remember that for supper he is 
to have his favorite dish, honey-pudding dipped in 
syrup, and there is to be pork with shallot.” 

“Yes, yes,” said grandtather; ‘‘and then let the 
servants have a rest for to-night.” 

Ulrica hastened into the maids’ room, where the 
servants were picking tow, but she had not taken 
many steps before her timid and undeveloped little 
face again took on an anxious and listening expres- 
sion. 

“ But,Ulrica!” called grandfather. “ I don’t under- 
stand this, Ulrica! Come here, Ulrica!”’ 

She hung the bunch of keys she had just taken 
up behind the door-post in the entry, and went 
out. 

“Isn't that a rider coming off there?” asked 
grandfather. “ Three months now I’ve been spared 
from letters. I grow so full of dread when I get a 


60 THE CHARLES MEN 


letter. Look at him, look at him! He digs his paw 
into his bag.” 

The rider came to a standstill a moment by the 
steps, and delivered a sealed and folded paper. 

The aunts elbowed their way forward on both 
sides of grandfather, and reached him his spec- 
tacles, but his hands trembled so that he could 
hardly break the seal. They all wanted to read 
the writing at the same time, and Ulrica forgot her- 
self so far that she leaned over grandfather’s arm, 
pointed along the lines, and spelled aloud before 
the others. 

At last she struck her hands together and stared 
in front of her, while tears mounted to her eyes. 

“ Axel Frederick, Axel Frederick!” she cried, 
and ran over the sanded court to the pasture. “ For 
heaven’s sake!” 

“What themischiefisthe matter with you now?” 
answered Axel Frederick, throwing away the with- 
ered fern which he was chewing. He had a full, pink 
face and an agreeable, careless voice. 

She did not come to a halt before she had taken 
his hand. 

“Axel Frederick, you don’t know! There’s an 
order that the regiment shall hold itself in readi- 
ness to gather under the flag. It’s on account ofthe 
Danes’ invasion into Holstein.” 

He followed her back to the great house, and 
she squeezed and squeezed his wrist. 


MIDSUMMER SPORT 61 


“Dear children,” stammered grandfather, “that 
I must needs live to see such a visitation! We have 
war upon us.” 

Axel Frederick stood and pondered. 

Finally he looked up and answered, “I won’t 
gO. 

Grandfather tramped around on the steps, and 
about him the aunts went back and forth. 

“You are already enrolled, dear child. The only 
thing would be if we could perhaps hire some one 
else.” 

“One can surely do that,” replied Axel Freder- 
ick indifferently. 

He went into the house, and Ulrica sprang up 
the stairs with her apron before her eyes, and threw 
herself on her bed. 

In the evening, when the honey-pudding was 
eaten, and they all sat around the table, grand- 
father wanted, as usual, to work on a hundred- 
mesh net, but he trembled too much. 

“Tt has gone ill up there in Stockholm,” said he. 
‘Ballets, masquerades, streets covered with car- 
pets, comedians and conjurers of all sorts—that 
has been the daily food with our new ‘ King Chris- 
tina.’ I’ve heard all about it. Whenthe money ran 
out, he began to give away the crown jewels. Now 
our gracious lord must spell out another lesson.” 

Axel Frederick moved back his candlestick, and 


sat leaning indolently forward with his elbows on 


62 THE CHARLES MEN 


the table, while the aunts and Ulrica, her eyes red 
with weeping, cleared the table. Grandfather nodded 
and coughed and went on with his talk. 

‘Tn all these years of peace there has been noth- 
ing but greed and extortion, and the very worst 
fellows have pushed themselves nearest to the 
throne. Now these fatted oxen are behaving ill, | 
fancy. Ha-ha! You should but have seen the old 
times when grandfather was young, and was called 
to the nobles’ banner. The king’s standard that was 
kept in the royal wardrobe was unfurled, and the 
horse with the kettledrum was equipped in its long 
saddle-cloth with crowns in the corner, and then we 
assembled in our tight, braided coats, while the 
trumpets began to play.” 

Grandfather took the yarn and tried to tie it, but 
threw it aside again and rose. 

“You should only have seen, Axel Frederick. 
Even in the moonlight, as we stood drawn up on 
the icy ground and sang psalms before the advance, 
I recognized the Narkingers’ red uniforms with 
white facings, which were like striped tulips; and 
the vellow Kronobergers, and the gray boys from 
Kalmar, and the gay blue Dalecarlian regiment, and 
the West Gotlanders, who were yellow and black. 
That was a feast to behold, but quiet as in the 
Lord’s house. Well, there have come other men 
and other coats. Everything now ts to be severe 
and simple.” 


MIDSUMMER SPORT 63 


There was silence in the room awhile. 

After that Axel Frederick said, as if to himself, 
“If my togs and gear were in good order, there 
might be merry times in a camp.” 

Grandfather shook his head. 

“You are frail in health, Axel Frederick, and 
it will be hard to march down through the whole 
kingdom to Denmark.” 

“Yes, march I won’t, but I might, though, have 
Elias with me and the brown long-wagon.” 

“That you may of course have any time, but you 
have no cloth tent with stakes and ridge-tree and 
pegs and whatever else there ought to be now.” 

“Elias could very well purchase that for me on 
the way. As to uniform, I’m passably well off.” 

“Tet ’s see now, let ’s see now.”” Grandfather be- 
came eager and toddled off over the floor to open 
the wardrobe. “‘ Ulrica, come here, Ulrica, and read 
how it stands there in His Royal Majesty’s”’ (he 
bowed) “edict which lies on the table! Here we have 
the cloak with brass buttons, lined with smooth 
Swedish baize. That is right. And the vest is here, 
too. Read now about the coat!” 

Ulrica trimmed the tallow candle, and sat down 
at the table with hands over her brow, while she 
read monotonously, spelling out the words, in a 
loud voice: “Coat of blue unstretched cloth, red 
collar, lined with madder-red baize, twelve brass 
buttons in front, four above and three below the 


64 THE CHARLES MEN 


pocket-flap, and one button on each side, three 
small on each sleeve.” 

“‘Kight—twelve—that’s right. Now we come 
to the breeches.” 

“Breeches of good buckskin or deerskin with 
three buttons covered with chamois.” 

“They are fearfully chafed. There will soon be 
eyes in the seat. However, Elias could very well see 
to getting you a new pair on the way. But the hat 
and gloves. Where are the hat and gloves?” 

“They ’re lying in the chest in the entry,” said 
Axel Frederick. 

Ulrica read: ‘Gloves with large gauntlets of yel- 
low shamozed ox-leather, stiffened and reinforced, 
with the grip of buck- or goat-skin. Shoes of good 
Swedish wax-leather with straps cut in one piece. 
Bottom of an insole and a middle-sole. Shoe- 
buckles of brass.” 

“The shoes and wax-leather boots are here, and 
are fairly good. You can have my spurs. You shall 
be a fine-looking Swedish soldier, my dear boy.” 

“ Neckcloth: one of black Swedish wool-crepon 
two-and-a-half feet long and a full nine inches wide 
with a leather cord half a yard long at each end, 
and two of white.” 

“That Elias must get for you at Orebro.” 

‘Pistols: two pairs. Holsters of black leather 
with tops of gathered broadcloth.” 

“You must take mine. And my broadsword is in 


MIDSUMMER SPORT 65 


excellent condition with calf-skin sheath and sword- 
band of elk-leather. That ’s how a Swedish warrior 
ought to look. We must now think, too, of equip- 
ping Elias and putting in haversacks and all.” 

Axel Frederick stretched his arms. 

“It’s surely the best thing for me to go up and 
lie down and take a good rest beforehand.” 

There was now noise and commotion in the great 
house. There was nailing and battering every day, 
there was flaming and sputtering in the fireplace, 
and by night the candle was burning. The one room 
that stayed dark was Axel Frederick’s. 

On the last night no one but Axel Frederick 
went to rest, and when the dawn had come on so far 
that all lights could be put out, the aunts waked 
him and gave him something warm to drink in bed 
with drops of agua fortis, for they had heard that 
he coughed in the night. 

When he came down into the hall, the others 
were gathered there already,even the maids and the 
men-servants, and the table was spread for all in 
common. They ate without saying a single word, 
but when the meal was over, and they arose, the 
Bible was brought to grandfather, and Ulrica read 
with choked voice. When she had ceased, grand- 
father clasped his hands and spoke with eyes 
closed: 

‘like as my forefathers have done, even so will 
| now in the hour of departure lay my hands upon 


66 THE CHARLES MEN 


you, my daughter’s son, and bless you, for many 
are my years, and who knows when the hour-glass 
has run out? God, the Most High, I invoke from 
my lowly dwelling, that He may lead you to honor, 
and that the heavy trials which await us may only 
exalt our little nation to be greater and more glo- 
rious. 

Axel Frederick stood at the corner of the table, 
fingering and balancing the plate, until from out- 
side was heard a clatter, as the brown long-wagon 
was driven up. 

All now went out, and Axel Frederick sat up be- 
side Elias, wrapped in grandfather’s wolf-skin coat 
and much heated, for in the spring weather the 
water was dripping from roof and tree. 

‘“‘ Here is the butter firkin,” said the aunts, “and 
here the bread sack. Hearken now, Elias! In the 
seat-box are the curd-cake and the flask with the 
aqua fortis. If the strain and peril are too hard, dear 
Axel Frederick, never forget that the way home is 
short.” 

But grandfather pressed in among them and 
stuck his hands down in the back of the wagon. 

“Is the chest tied on right? And let’s see now! 
Here is the sprinkling-brush and the whisk-cloth 
and the scraper—and here we have the fodder-bag 
and the water-bottle. That ’s as it ought to be. The 
lead-mould, bullet-cutter, and casting ladle are in 
the chest.” 


MIDSUMMER SPORT 67 


Ulrica stood behind them without any one no- 
ticing her. 

She said very softly, “Axel Frederick, when it 
is summer, I shall go out some evening and bind 
joy-threads and sorrow-threads on the rye, to see 
which has grown highest the next morning—” 

“‘ Now it’sall ready,” broke in grandfather, who 
had not heard her; ‘‘and God be with both you and 
Elias!” 

Round about on the side of the road stood the 
farm-folk and the day-laborers. 

But just as Elias raised his whip, Axel Freder- 
ick laid his hand over the reins. 

“This journey may turn out ill,” said he. 

Still it would look badly,” answered Elias, “to 
unharness and unsaddle now.” 

Axel Frederick stuck his hand back into the 
sleeve of his coat, and between the lines of silent 
people the wagon rolled away. 


The weeks passed, and the trees blossomed. It 
was a slow march with the Narke regiment through 
the wilds of Sweden, and Axel Frederick sat in his 
coat and slept beside Elias, warm on the brow and 
with his gloves of goat’s-hair very moist. A little 
way from Landskrona, the brown long-wagon had 
fallen behind the regimental baggage,and the horse 
stood in the blaze of the sun, and browsed beside 


68 THE CHARLES MEN 


the ditch. Both masterand man fell asleep, shoulder 
to shoulder. 

The horse whisked at a gad-fly, the water purled 
in the ditch, and a couple of vagrants threw their 
bad language at the sleepers; but they continued to 
sit in the same untroubled repose. 

Then there came behind them at a gallop a shab- 
bily dressed rider with a large flaxen peruke, who 
pulled up his horse beside the wagon. 

Elias nudged Axel Frederick, and picked up the 
reins, but Axel Frederick, unwilling to open his 
eyes, only said: “Yes, drive on, Elias! I need to get 
a good rest before my hardships.” 

Elias gave him another nudge in the side. 

“Rouse yourself, rouse yourself!” he whispered. 

Drowsily Axel Frederick opened one eye — but 
in that instant he grew blood-red over all his 
face, he rose, and saluted from the middle of the 
wagon. 

He recognized at once from pictures that it was 
the eighteen-year-old king himself. Yet what a 
transformation! Was this majestic and command- 
ing youth, who had grown up so quickly, the same 
that afew months before beheaded calves and broke 
windows? He was not above middle height, and his 
face was small; but the brow was high and noble, 
and from the large deep-blue eyes beamed an en- 
chanting radiance. 

“The gentleman should throw off his coat, so 


MIDSUMMER SPORT 69 


that I caninspect his uniform,” he said deliberately. 
“The earth is green long since.”’ 

Axel Frederick panted and struggled to get off 
his grandfather’s accursed pelisse,and the king sur- 
veyed coat and buttons, fingered them, pulled at 
them, and counted. 

“That is fair,” said he with a precociously ear- 
nest expression ; “and now we shall all become en- 
tirely new men.” 

Axel Frederick stood dazed and erect, looking 
fixedly at the wagon wheel. 

Then the king added slowly, “In a few days we 
may perhaps have the fortune to stand before the 
enemy. I have been told that in battle nothing is 
as hardas thirst. If the gentleman should some time 
meet me in the tumult of the strife, let him step 
forward and lend me his drinking-flask.” 

The king once more gave his horse the spurs, 
and Axel Frederick sat down. He had never loved 
or hated, never been worried or carried away with 
enthusiasm, and he pondered the king’s words. 

The pelisse came to lie between him and Elias. 
When at dusk the wagon clattered into Lands- 
krona, the regiment had already pitched their tents. 
Axel Frederick looked about for the covered drink- 
ing-table of which he had dreamed. Instead he found 
only taciturn comrades, who pressed one another’s 
hands, and looked away in crowds across the Straits 
of Oresund, where the waves were rushing under 


70 THE CHARLES MEN 


the cloudy summer heavens, and where flags and 
pennons fluttered over the forest of masts of the 
Swedish fleet. 

Next morning Elias put the horse and wagon 
into a barn, because the Crown had taken over all 
vessels, and only on the day after the fleet had 
sailed could he follow on a fishing-boat to Zeeland. 
He remained standing on the shore, almost out in 
the water, when the monstrous anchors, dripping 
with mud, were hoisted up by the creaking cables. 
On mast after mast rose the swelling sails, and the 
sunlight glittered on the lanterns and glass win- 
dows of the poops. The billows danced and shot 
by, mirroring in flaming coils the lofty, swaying 
forms of the galleons, which with their laurel gar- 
lands and tridents pointed out across the sea to the 
unexplored land of wonder, toward adventure and 
achievement. The masses of cloud, after resting 
long on the waves, had sunk into thesea, and the 
atmosphere was blue as in a saga. 

Then the king forgot himself; the boy in his soul 
conquered so that he began to clap his hands. He 
stood in the poop just in front of the lantern, and 
around him the gray-haired warriors of his father’s 
time smiled, and also began to clap. Even His Ex- 
cellency Piper sprang up the ladder as nimbly as 
a ship’s-boy. There were no longer any old and de- 
crepit men or greedy bickerers; it was an army of 
youths. 


MIDSUMMER SPORT Fo 


As if at a mysterious sign, music and drums be- 
gan to sound at the same moment, swords flew 
from their sheaths, and, rising above Admiral Anc- 
karstierna’s words through the speaking-trumpet, 
a hymn was sung from the nineteen warships and 
the hundred smaller vessels. 

Elias recognized Axel Frederick, who sat on 
grandfather’s pelisse, hemmed in by the cargo of 
gabions, sacks for earth, and trench entanglements. 
But when Elias saw that he, too, slowly rose and 
drew his blade like the others, and saw how the 
fleet gradually vanished on the water, he passed his 
hand over his eyes, shaking his head. 

He returned toward the barn, muttering, “How 
will he look after himself with his fragile health till 
Ecan catch “ups: 


A few daysafterward Elias came alone with his long- 
wagon on the Smaland roads. Peasant women, who 
recognized him from the time he had driven past 
with the sleeping officer, set their entry doors ajar, 
and asked if 1t was true that the Swedes had landed 
at Zeeland, and that the king had thanked God on 
his knees for the victory, but had stammered from 
embarrassment. 

He nodded assentingly without replying. 

Day after day he drove northward, step by step, 
walking with the reins the whole way beside the 
wagon, which was covered with a piece of an old sail. 


72 THE CHARLES MEN 


When at last, one evening, he came to the hedge 
in front of the great house, all immediately recog- 
nized by the noise that it was the brown long- 
wagon, and the horse neighed. Amazed, they went 
to the window, grandfather himself came out on 
the steps, and Ulrica stood in the middle of the 
courtyard. 

Elias walked as slowly as ever with the reins in 
his hands, and at the steps the horse stood still of 
itself. 

Then Elias carefully drew the sail from the 
wagon, and there stood a long, narrow, nailed-up 
coffin, with a yellowed wreath of beech-leaves on 
the lid. 

“*T brought him homewith me,” said Elias.“ He 
received a shot in the breast as he sprang forward 


and handed His Royal Majesty his drinking-flask.” 


Gunnel the Stewardess 


N a vault of the fortressat Riga, Gunnel the stew- 

ardess; an old woman of eighty, sat and spun. 
Her long arms were veinous and sinewy, her breast 
was lean and flat like an old man’s. Some thin 
white wisps of hair hung down over her eyes, and 
she had a cloth knotted about her head like a round 
cap. 

The spinning-wheel whirred, anda trumpeter lad 
lay on the stone floor in front of the fire. 

“Grandma,” said he, “can’t you sing something 
while you are spinning? I’ve never heard you do 
otherwise than nag and scold.” 

For a brief moment she turned towards him her 
tired and wickedly chilling eyes. 

“« Sing? Perhaps of your mother, who was set on 
a wagon and carried to the Muscovites? Perhaps 
of your father, whom they hanged at the chimney 
of the house on the bridge? Curse will I the night 
when I was born, and myself will I curse and every 
human being I have met. Name me a single one 
who is not even worse than his repute.” 

“If you sing a song, you'll be cheerful, grand- 
ma, and I should be so glad to have you cheerful, 
this evening.” 

‘““He whom you see playing or laughing is only 
a master of deception. Misery and shame is all, 


74 THE CHARLES MEN 


and it is for the sake of our sins and our baseness 
that now the Saxons have come and besieged our 
city. Why don’t you go in the evening and do your 
duty on the wall as at otherwhiles, instead of lying 
here in your laziness ?”’ 

“Grandma, can’t you say a single pleasant word 
to meas I go?”’ 

“Thrash you I should, if I were not so infirm 
and bent with my years that I no more can lift my 
countenance to heaven. Do you not want me to 
tell your fortune? Do they not call me the Sibyl? 
Shall I tell you that thecrooked line over your eye- 
brows signifies an early death? I see years ahead 
into the future, but as far as I see I find only evil 
and low purposes. You are worse than I, and I am 
worse than my mother, and all that which is born 
is worse than that which dies.” 

He arose from the floor and stirred the logs. 

“T will tell you, grandma, wherefore I sat my- 
self by you this evening, and wherefore I asked 
of you a kindly word. The old governor-general 
has ordered to-day that before the following night 
all women, young and aged, sound and sick, shall 
go their way, so as not to consume the bread of 
the men. Those who refuse shall be punished with 
death. How can you, who in ten years have never 
gone further than across the castle courtyard to the 
storehouse, now be able to range about in wood and 


”? 


waste in the midst of the winter cold? m 


GUNNEL THE STEWARDESS 75 
She laughed and trod the spinning-wheel faster 


and faster. 

“Ffaha! I have been waiting for this after I 
tended so faithfully the noble lord’s storeroom and 
all that was his. And you, Jan? Aren’t you worried 
at having no one any longer to bake for you at the 
oven and make your bed on the folding-bench? 
What other feeling is there in children? Praised be 
Gop, be Gop, Who at the end casts us all under 
the scourge of His wrath!” 

Jan clasped his hands about his curly brown hair. 

“Grandma, grandma!” 

“Go, I tell you, and let me sit in peace and spin 
my tow, till I open the door myself and go out of 
it to be quit of this earthly life!” 

He took a few steps forward toward the spin- 
ning-wheel, but thereupon turned about and went 
out of the vault. 

The spinning-wheel whirred and whirred, until 
the fire burned out. Next morning, when Jan the 
trumpeter came back, the vault stood empty. 

The siege was long and severe. After divine ser- 
vice had been held, all the women went out of the 
city in the snowy days of February, and the feeble 
or sick were set upon litters and wagons. All Riga 
became a cloister for men, who had nothing to give 
to the flocks of begging women that now and then 
stole out in front of the wall. The men had scarcely 
bread for their own necessities, and the starved 


76 THE CHARLES MEN 


horses tore each other to pieces in the stalls, or de- 
voured the mangers, and gnawed great holes in the 
wooden walls. Smoke hung over the burned sub- 
urbs, and at night the soldiers were often wakened 
by warning tocsins, and took down their broad- 
swords from the ceiling. 

In the evenings, however, when Jan the trum- 
peter came home to the vault which he and his 
grandmother had had as a living-room, he almost 
always found the folding-bench made up as a bed, 
and a bowl with mouldy meat beside it on a chair. 
He was ashamed of saying anything about it to 
the others, but he was really terrified. He believed 
that his grandmother had perished in the snow- 
drifts,and that now, remorseful over her former 
hardness, she went about again without rest. In his 
fright he shook as with ague, and many a night he 
preferred to sleep hungry in the snow on the wall. 
After he had strengthened himself with prayer, 
however, he became easier, and finally he felt him- 
self more surprised and anxious when he now and 
then found the folding-bench untouched and the 
chair empty. Then he would seat himself at the 
spinning-wheel and, treading it very softly, would 
listen to the familiar whirring which he had heard 
day after day since his birth. 

Nowit happened one morning that the governor- 
general, the celebrated Erik Dahlberg, a man of 
seventy-five, heard violent shooting. He rose with 


GUNNEL THE STEWARDESS 77 


impatient anger from his sketches and fortification 
models of wax. As areminder of his bright youth- 
ful excursions in the service of beauty, splendid 
etchings of Roman ruins hung on the wall, but his 
formerly mild countenance had become wrinkled 
with melancholy, and an expression of harshness 
stiffened around the narrow, compressed, almost 
white lips. He adjusted his great spliced wig, and 
tremblingly ran his nails over his thin moustache. 
When he went down the stairs, he struck heavily 
on the stones with his cane, and said: 

“Ah, we Swedes, we blood-kindred to the Vasa 
kings, who in their old age could only find fault and 
quarrel and at the last sat in their own rooms afraid 
of the dark,—we have in our soul a black seed, 
from which with the years is raised a branching tree 
filled with the bitterest gall-apples.” 

He became bitterer and harsher in spirit the far- 
ther he went, and when he finally stood at the wall, 
he spoke to no one. 

Several battalions had been drawn up with flags 
and music, but afterwards the shooting had quieted, 
and through the gate returned scattered bands of 
weary and bleeding men who had just repulsed the 
enemy’s attack. Last of them all, came a thin and 
feeble old man, who had himself a red sabre wound 
on the breast, but who painfully carried in his arms 
in front of him a wounded boy. 


Erik Dahlberg raised his hand over his brows to 


78 THE CHARLES MEN 


look. Was not the fallen boy Jan the trumpeter, the 
lad from the castle? He recognized him by his curly 
brown hair. 

At the arch of the gate the exhausted bearer sank 
down against the stone pillar, and remained there 
sitting with his wound and with the dead boy on his 
knee. Some soldiers, bending down to examine the 
wound, slit up the bloody shirt above the breast. 

“What!” they shouted, and stepped back. “It’s 
a woman!” 

Wondering, they bent down still lower to look 
at her face. She had sunk her head sidewise against 
the wall, and the fur cap slid down, so that the white 
locks of her hair fell forward. 

“It’s Gunnel the stewardess, the Sibyl!” 

She breathed heavily and opened her dulling eyes. 

“] didn’t want to leave the boy alone in this 
world of evil, but after I had put on men’s clothes 
and served night and day among the others on the 
wall, I thought that I was eating a man’s bread with- 
out wrong.” 

Soldiers and officers looked dubiously at Erik 
Dahlberg, whose commands she had transgressed. 
He continued to stand there, reserved and harshly 
gloomy, while the stick in his hand trembled and 
tapped on the stone paving. 

Slowly he turned to the battalion and the thin 
lips moved. 

“Lower your colors!’’ he said. 


French Mons 
HIDE-COVERED field wagon had stuck in 


one of the swamps of Poland, and the horse 
had already been unhitched. On the wagon stood 
a young man who had just come to the army to 
work his way up. His comrades called him French 
Mons, because as tutor he had followed some dis- 
tinguished lords to France, and had there filled his 
chest with all sorts of odd things. Captain Olof 
Oxehufvud and several subalterns and soldiers 
waited alongside in the mud, and the snowstorm 
struck them in the face. 

“The wagon and chest must be left behind,” said 
Oxehufvud. 

French Mons opened the chest, and pulled out 
as much as he could carry. 

‘““What a pied dressing-gown with all that nee- 
dlework and tassels!”’ exclaimed Oxehufvud and 
the subalterns. “What miserable little slippers! 
And false calves! And a bonnet!” 

“That ’s a cadeau from ma—”’ 

“Kick it into the slush!” 

“<__ From mama.” 

“Look at the little peruke! 

“«And the medium peruke!” 

“And the great spliced peruke!”’ 

Oxehufvud could now control himself no longer, 
but took him by the leg. 


»”? 


80 THE CHARLES MEN 


“Kick the damned stuff into the slush, I say!” 

The delicate blonde countenance of French 
Mons flamed up, and he struck his hand on his 
sword. 

‘“‘Master Captain, such an import —”’ 

“Such an important person as you can freely 
hold up the march, you think?” 

“No. Such a victorious army, I would say, surely 
need not go 1n shabby clothes, with dressing-gowns 
from the time of King Orre.” 

“Stuff and nonsense! Little schoolmaster ! Con- 
summate ass !”’ 

‘* The captain treats me like a menial, yet I have 
had education, have travelled in France, yes, have 
stood eye to eye with Vauban himself.” 

“ Well, what did Vauban say?” 

“What did he say?” 

SLMSh SOc, 

““«Get out!’ he said, for it was at his own gate, 
and I was in his way.” 

“Lord! Lord! Get down from the wagon and 
be quick about it! Come here, two of you fellows, 
and take this beggar in lady’s chair style!” 

French Mons rolled up the slippers and wigs in 
the dotted dressing-gown and took it on his back, 
while he held a lorgnette before his eyes. 

When he had been carried to the bank, Oxe- 
hufvud stood in front of him, tall and slim, with 
brilliant red cheeks and small dark moustaches. 


FRENCH MONS 8 


“Hark now, monsieur, what do you want in the 
field? Do you want to work up?” 

“Though not of noble rank, I aspire to it. Who 
knows if perhaps even I may not sit some time with 
a certificate of nobility in my pocket?” 

“You may ennoble yourself in fools’ hell! In 
this army no one says a word about nobility, but 
every one must work his way up the best he 
may.” 

Oxehufvud had now abused him so long as 
leader that his comradely heart began to thaw, and 
he added grumblingly in a somewhat milder tone, 
“‘ Behave yourself gallantly, and you may get your 
officer’s commission to start with! We have already 
broken so many Swedish dandies of your sort and 
made men of them. There by that little wood you 
see a large house with a white stairway. Since we are 
in all no more than five-and-twenty men, I can’t 
afford to leave you a single soldier. Reconnoitre 
and spy diligently on the enemy, so that no one 
falls on us from the rear!”’ 

Oxehufvud marched off with his little band, and 
French Mons went up to the house with his bun- 
dle on his back. 

No human being was visible, and he stationed 
himself irresolutely in the lee of the wall. He was 
cold and wet through, but above all he was troubled 
by the dirt and mud on his boots. Would he not 
be able to keep equally good watch from one of 


82 THE CHARLES MEN 


the windows? A well-made bed with a silken cov- 
erlet and a foot-muff was exactly what he longed 
for. 

Transversely under the house went a dark car- 
riage-door, and thither with great caution he slunk 
along the wall. When he had dried his moist lor- 
gnette, heleaned forwardand looked in withstealthy 
alertness. 

There was a stamping and clattering, and he dis- 
tinguished two gleaming eyes. With throbbing heart 
he took a step back and drew his sword. A black 
horse rushed out and ran back and forth in the 
courtyard, while it threw the snow high in the air 
with its hind feet. 

“T won’tcatch that black fellow,” thought French 
Mons. “If a soldier sits on such a wild horse, the 
dead owner will rise from the swamp, jump up 
behind, and pull him from the saddle. They tell 
of such things in the evening by the camp-fire.”’ 

He threatened the horse with his sword, and 
went in, pushing the door open on the other side 
so that the light would be better. He saw now that 
the door to the house was walled up. 

Snorting and stamping, the horse came back, but 
French Mons chased him out again. Then he went 
out and called up to the window. A gray-haired 
serving-woman stuck out her head. 

“Does a friend of King Stanislaus or of the 
Saxon drunkard dwell here?” he asked. 


FRENCH MONS 83 


“Here dwells an old recluse, who is no one’s 
enemy and no one’s friend.” 

“Good. Then he cannot deny shelter to a frozen 
Swedish soldier.” 

Theserving-woman vanished and finally returned 
after a time with a ladder, on which he climbed in. 

The room was large, and the ugly but clean 
wooden chairs stood in a stiff row along the bare 
walls. When he chanced to push back one of the 
chairs with his scabbard, the serving-woman has- 
tened at once to move it back to its proper place. 
Two girls dressed in blue, with pale faces and curled 
hair, came and went without saying a word. As soon 
as one got a few steps behind, she ran anxiously 
forward to the other’s side. They rubbed against 
each other and groped with their long fingers, and 
though it was still bright daylight, they carried two 
lighted lamps. 

When the serving-woman had rubbed the mud 
from his boots and sufficiently dried the wet places 
that the soles had made on the floor, she quietly 
and carefully opened the door to the next room. 

“Don’t walk too roughly!” she whispered. 

There stood a man of middle age in a dressing- 
gown and with the most impudent and pointed nose, 
but no one had ever worn a more elegantly curled 
peruke, and on his white fingers gleamed rings with 
jewels. 

French Mons set down his bundle, and eyed him 


84 THE CHARLES MEN 


with his lorgnette. Much pleased with his vener- 
able exterior, he thereupon made a wide gesture 
with his arms, and bowed to the floor. 

““My intentions are courteous,” he said, ‘and 
humbly I beg the favor of knowing with what no- 
bleman I have the good fortune to speak.” 

«Sit down, my good sir. I am nothing but a for- 
gotten old recluse, but since you are a man of qual- 
ity, I shall at once explain various things that may 
seem remarkable.” 

The two gentlemen sat down stiff and straight 
with hands on their knees. 

“Formerly I was a merry companion, and my 
coat of brocade was the talk of all Warsaw, but on 
my thirtieth birthday, when I sat drinking with my 
comrades, I lifted my glass and spoke somewhat 
in this fashion: My friends, with every year your 
eyes become harder and yourhearts more shrunken. 
One believesin King Stanislaus of the whitecheeks, 
and the other in King August with the big belly. 
Afterwards you forge your plots accordingly, and 
seek for appointments and rewards. I will not go to 
the grave with the horrible recollection that each 
of my brothers was at the last a Cain. I set friend- 
ship much higher than love, because it is a bond 
exclusively between souls, and therefore to-day I 
say unto you farewell, aavile we are all still young. 
Of me you shall never hear anything further, but 
such as I now see you, you shall still go about me 


FRENCH MONS 85 


in my room before my eyes and keep me company, 
when I sit alone and old. When the serving-woman 
outside the door hears that I prattle half aloud, she 
will say: ‘Now the old man is talking with the 
friends of his youth.’” 

“And after you had so bade them farewell?” 

“Then I went home and had the door walled up. 
My servants have to get themselves out and in as 
best they may.” 

“With a host of such delicate sensibilities a guest 
will surely get on well.” 

“Get on well? What are you thinking of ? My 
twin daughters who walk about the room here with 
their lampsareinsane. Their mother wasan abducted 
nun. No, a guest would not get on in the least.” 

“You mean, perhaps, that my coming disturbs.” 

“‘ Ah well, I won’t exactly say that. But there are 
ghosts here.” 

His nostrils rose at the corners, and he got up 
and rubbed his hands in satisfaction. 

“TI consider it my duty as host to tell the truth as 
well first as last. There is a dead lackey who goes 
about again, and whose name is Jonathan. He 
stands in window-recesses and behind doors in 
brown livery with black braid. His servant zeal so 
sticks to the poor fellow even after death that he 
watches over and serves guests when they least ex- 
pect it. Fortunately guests are rare here. Tell me, 
are you a count?”’ 


86 “THE CHARLES MEN 
TUNG, 


“Are you a baron?” 

“No, I’m not a baron yet.” 

‘“‘Are you not at least a plain nobleman?” 

“Ts it my lord’s intention to insult?” 

French Mons flushed with embarrassment. “ T he 
certificate has been my dearest dream,” he thought, 
“and would to God I carried it already in my coat 
pocket. Then no one any longer should cry, ‘ Little 
schoolmaster!’ Then it should be: ‘I sawthe marks 
of nobility on that man long before he got his cer- 
tificate.’”’ 

‘“‘How can such a simple question wound you?” 
exclaimed the recluse, with yet more enjoyment. 

“Of course I am noble. My family is extremely 
Olas 

“That would be another thing. That’s very 
good. Though Jonathan had a Christian burial and 
all that, he is such an out-and-out aristocratic lackey 
that he starts all sorts of malicious tricks as soon as 
he has before him a parvenu or a plebeian.” 

French Mons stroked his small moustache with 
the nail of his little finger and swung his lorgnette 
uncomfortably. 

“Is my lord a connoisseur of Syracusan wine?” 
he asked. 

SIN G2 

“T too think much more of a glass of Fronti- 
gnac. My favorite dish is ragout with mushrooms, 


FRENCH MONS 87 


though I shall never speak ill of a haché of lamb 
with thyme. Much in this part of the world depends 
on the sauce. Oh, I do not long to be back see: 
with oatmeal and pitchy darkness.” 

“ Pitch darkness? Are you thinking of the sum- 
mer nights?” 

“ Phey:are bright. 

“And winter evenings are bright, too, for then 
you have snow. If you are afraid of pitch darkness, 
never travel southward again! Have you in your 
land any great artists and scholars?” 

“We have not and never shall have.” 

“You do not over-value your countrymen.” 

“‘T have seen a little of the great world, my lord. 
I have travelled in France a good two months, my 
lord. I have even been a whole evening with roz 
Soleil.” 

“You? Have you been with Louis XIV?” 

“That I have—at the theatre—though I only 
got a wretched standing-place in the parterre. Since 
Augustus there has not lived so majestic a sover- 
eign. Only look at his style of bowing!” 

“The king of Sweden is a man, too.” 

“That he 1s, for he makes us noticed in foreign 
countries, but how poor for all that!” 

‘““Mightily poor in Warsaw lately. When Stanis- 
laus stepped into the church for coronation with 
his spouse, who is always frightened and tremulous, 
he not only got as a present from the Swedes the 


88 THE CHARLES MEN 


newly wrought crown, sceptre, apple, sword, er- 
mine, belt, and shoes, but also a banner, tapestries 
on the church walls, the plates on the table, corona- 
tion money to be scattered about, and soldiers who 
kept guard and fired the jubilation salute — and 
at the last he thanked His Excellency Piper and 
kissed his hand.— Are you poor yourself?” 

“Poors Le4 : 

French Mons thought of the two wretched 
Charles-pieces that were sewed under the lining of 
his coat, and were all he possessed, but he rapped 
his lorgnette on the table and hastened to say: “ My 
expenses are enormous—and play amuses me— | 
never go without ten louis d’or in my purse.” 

“Will you lend me five louis d’or?”’ 

French Mons looked up at the ceiling. 

“Just to-day, unluckily, I forgot my purse in a 
coat on my tent-post. But I shall deem myself 
happy to have the trifle sent you at the first oppor- 
tunity. My lord, do not regard us awkward Swedes 
as any grands seigneurs. However high I mount, still 
Mons always peeps out between the seams.” 

“You were mightily awkward lately at our Polish 
election, when Arvid Horn sat with his note-book 
and registered all who voted against the Swedish 
orders, and when our land-marshal broke his staff 
in despair.— But now consider my house as your 
own. The tobacco pipe lies by the flask of scented 
water, the scented water on the powder-box, the 


FRENCH MONS 89 


powder-box on the tobacco keg, the tobacco keg 
on the commode. That you must hunt out as time 
goes on.’ 

With these words he took up a leather-bound 
book and sat down to read. 

““T beg you to trouble yourself no further,” an- 
swered French Mons, looking at him sidelong 
through his lorgnette with wakening mistrust. 
Within his soul he thought: “Just wait till I’m 
sitting with my certificate in my big state carriage! 
Then it will be: ‘That gentleman is our newly 
made knight, Magnus Gabriel.’”’ 

The two girls every now and then pattered past 
through the room, and threw the light of their 
lamps upon him, and every time he rose and 
bowed. As the ah meanwhile continued to read 
and gradually appeared to forget his presence en- 
tirely, he finally took his bundle and went back into 
the outer room. 

“Tt’s getting dark,” he said to the serving-wo- 
man, “‘andI am too tired to keep company longer.” 

“We have arranged the gentleman’s bed here to 
the left in the great hall. That is the only room that 
has a, fire,” 

The hall was whitewashed and long, with inhos- 
pitable rows of chairs and a couple of rough fold- 
ing-tables. Just by the door stood a bed with cur- 
tains of Holland linen. The old woman lighted the 
four candles in the sconces and left him alone. 


go THE CHARLES MEN 


Chilled, he looked about him and laid his sword 
on the table. Then he unpacked his bundle. Three 
of the candles he blew out, and on them hung the 
little peruke and the medium peruke and the 
spliced peruke, but with the fourth he threw the 
light under the bed and in the window recesses and 
then set it back in the socket. 

“Impudent pack!” he muttered. “I’d rather 
have stood outside in the snow, but since I’m now 
inside here, it’s a matter of keeping awake, peeping 
about, and going often to the window to listen and 
spy. 

: He tried to lock the door from inside, but it was 
without both bolt and key. After he had worked in 
vain for a long time to get off his wet boots, whose 
musty smell annoyed him, he put on his dressing- 
gown and lay down in his boots on the bed. 

At times he heard a muffled stamping and snort- 
ing from the wild horses in the carriage entrance 
under the floor of the hall, but after a while it grew 
more quiet, and he began to think that the candle 
did not light sufficiently, because all the corners 
and recesses were dark. He raised his lorgnette, 
sharpened his gaze, and turned his eyes on all sides, 
but otherwise Jay quite motionless. 

Then he saw by the door-jamb close behind the 
curtain at the head of his bed a tall, thin lackey ina 
brown coat with black braid. 

A cramp-like dread caught him by the throat, he 


FRENCH MONS gl 


grew dizzy, but he thought: “It is only the good 
God who wishes to try me because I am dreaming 
of distinctions and certificates.” 

Softly and almost imperceptibly he caught hold 
of both sides of the bed so as to control his shud- 
dering body, and then he stuck his right leg out 
between the curtains. 

“‘ Jonathan,” said he, “ pull off my boot!” 

The lackey grinned so that his dark mouth 
twisted itself up to his ears, but he did not move 
from his place. 

French Mons chattered his teeth, but he did not 
draw back his leg. 

‘Jonathan, is this the way you serve folk of the 
nobility?” 

The lackey grinned still worse, and made a dis- 
dainful gesture of refusal with his hand. 

French Mons now understood that the lackey 
had seen through his deception and treated him as 
a parvenu and a plebeian, and his terror grew so 
great that he panted and moaned softly, but his leg 
he held continually outstretched. 

“Pull off my boot, Jonathan!” 

His voice was now barely a whisper. 

The lackey rubbed his hands on his hips and 
grinned, but remained standing by the door-jamb. 

At that moment the horse down below in the car- 
riage entrance neighed long and piercingly, and far 
off in the snowstorm many horses answered. 


g2 THE CHARLES MEN 


French Mons threw himself from the bed. 

“I’m neglecting my duty,” he cried. “That’s 
the enemy!” 

He sprang forward to the table to grasp his 
sword, but the lackey walked beside him with long 
steps and stared him in the eyes. 

Then he again grew paralyzed and stood still. 
Meanwhile the lackey took the sword with one 
hand, stretched out the other over the candlestick, 
and with two fingers lifted the great spliced wig on 
high and then drew it as an extinguisher over the 
burning candle. 

“Good God in heaven!” stammered French 
Mons. “I have seldom gone into Thy house and 
have rather pampered myself and played with all 
sorts of vanity, but help me for this one time so 
that I do not neglect my duty and become a dis- 
grace! Then Thou may’st punish me eternally.” 

Neighings were heard ever nearer and nearer, 
and the wild horse rushed stamping and snorting 
from its retreat. 

Then French Mons bent down with his clenched 
hands over his head, and threw himself in the dark 
upon the lackey. 

“You spook of Beelzebub!” he shouted. 

He pulled the sword to him and struck on all 
sides in the dark, and chairs fell to the floor. He 
could nowhere lay hold on Jonathan, but at last 
he struck his hands against the wall, and the door 


FRENCH MONS 93 


opened. The two sisters with their lamps and their 
pale, wide-eyed countenances entered in only their 
chemises, without the wit to feel any embarrass- 
ment about it. They only rubbedagainst each other 
and stared at the stranger who had waked them 
with his racket. On this occasion he did not give 
himself time to bow, but shoved up the window 
and hopped to the ground. In his dressing-gown, 
with sword in hand, he ran along the house and 
heard behind him a harsh voice from the window, 
but he did not know whether it was that of the re- 
cluse or of Jonathan, or whether they were both one 
and the same. 

‘“<T said that you were afool,” cried the voice, “‘a 
great fool, a fool without peer, and I wanted to be 
even with you. But if the horsemen get to see you, 
and there is a hand-to-hand fight, my house, my 
home, my nook will be an ash-heap before the 
cock crows.” 

Without looking back, French Mons sprang in 
among the trees, thinking all the while: ““Now’s 
the chance for an officer’s commission! And then 
the certificate, the certificate!” 

The moonlight shone through the snowstorm, 
and he saw Polacks with waving plumes flit by like 
shadows. When they came too near, he threw him- 
self down beside a heap of twigs or set himself be- 
hind a tree trunk. 

At last he discovered an old snow-covered bar- 


94 THE CHARLES MEN 


ricade. Behind the logs a soldier rose and asked in 
a whisper: ‘“‘ Who goes there?” 

“God with us! Good comrade!” answered 
- French Mons, and climbed into the triangle. “The 
enemy is upon us!” 

“T have long thought I heard hoofs,” said Oxe- 
hufvud softly. ‘ Perhaps it would be wisest to run 
down and occupy the house.” 

‘Captain, do not command me to show the way! 
I was received there as a guest; I am a chevalier 
and would rather be shot.” 

“* And how were you treated there?” 

Mike an. excellencys 

“We shall see. Itseemsto be too latenow. Take 
aim! Fire!”’ 

A swarm of Polacks galloped forward and struck 
with their spears across the logs, but the first volley 
threw them from the saddle. 

“OQohaho! oohaho!” rang through the wood. 
Riding shadows and long lines of men on foot 
gathered as far as the eye could see. In the half 
light they resembled the dark bushes that swayed 
in the wind. 

“‘T fancy we’re going to havea pretty party with 
the enemy,” said Oxehufvud. “We are five-and- 
twenty men, and around us stand fully three bat- 
talions.” 

“Now we are only twenty-four,” answered 


FRENCH MONS 95 


French Mons as he took the musket from a fallen 
soldier. 

“Now we are only nineteen,” said Oxehufvud 
after a time. 

Shot rained over the triangle and killed man 
after man. As soon as the riders shrank back, the 
Swedes stopped shooting, but when the silence 
once more enticed the Polacks and inspired them 
with the belief that there was no longer any man 
living behind the barricade, they were met at once 
by shot and swords and stones and boughs of 
trees. So the raging strife continued hour after 
hour. 

Oxehufvud stole along the stockadeand counted 
half aloud: “‘ Fight, ten, thirteen—we’re not many 
now. A sorry number.” 

He, too, had taken a musket, and on his knees 
was picking up the ammunition from the cartridge- 
box of one of the fallen. 

““Comrade,”’ said he, and without rising he drew 
French Mons tohim in his dressing-gown. “I gave 
it to you rough, comrade, at noon on the swamp.” 

““ Now we are only seven,” answered French 
Mons, loading and firing. “‘ But soon we shall have 
held out three hours.”’ : 

“‘Comrade, you are not the first who has shown 
me that the Swedes should not always laugh at 
their dandies. You see, comrade, it happens some- 


96 THE CHARLES MEN 


times in this world that he who begins with a great 
peruke may end with a great deed.” 

“ Now we are only two.” 

“ Hardly two, for I have got mine already,” an- 
swered Oxehufvud, and sank back against the logs. 

“‘ Hardly two.” 
| French Mons now stood alone among the dead. 
He tore up his dressing-gown and twisted some 
rags about his left arm, which was bleeding vio- 
lently. His waistcoat, too, he cast away, and the 
lorgnette he stuffed into the leg of his boot. Then 
he lay down among the others as far in among the 
branches and twigs as he could creep. 

The next time the Polacks galloped forward, all 
was still. 

They vaulted over the logs with a wild cry and 
began to plunder, but when they saw him, bloody 
and half undressed, they let him lie, and at day- 
break they went away. 

“Now,” thought French Mons, “now I havemy 
officer’s commission. The certificate comes later.” 

He crept out between the logs, and up by the 
house in the snow he happened upon the peruke, 
which had been thrown after him from the win- 
dow. 

“The wretch!” hewhispered. “ That’s my thanks 
for saving his nest.” 

All day he went through the woods with his 


peruke under his arm, and only late in the even- 


FRENCH MONS 97 


ing was he challenged by the outposts of the Swed- 
ish camp. 

Tents and cabins of brush were set up in the 
woods without any sheltering entrenchments. On 
wagons or before their huts the women sat on a 
separate lane and cradled their children on their 
knees or whispered gently and quietly with their 
soldiers. Round the fires the clay pipes puffed in 
scarred hands. There Cornet Brokenhjelm and the 
dauntless Lieutenant Pistol related their adven- 
tures. Lieutenant Orbom let his neighbor feel with 
his fingers the shot from Klissov which still re- 
mained behind his right ear after having gone in 
under his left eye and through his head. Per Ad- 
lerfelt, the dancing-master, lamented that the en- 
emy always, as at Duna, shot so low that at last 
they would mar his handsome legs. There the lively 
Dumky jested, still wearing on his arm the garter 
which as a page he had got from a Silesian duch- 
ess. Svante Horn, who was being bandaged by his 
faithful servant, Lidbom, muttered that he could 
never charge without immediately getting a Cos- 
sack spear or sword in his body. Before him stood 
the genial gray-haired surgeon, Teuffenweisser, who 
continually put on and took off his spectacles, and 
always required a dram before he attended rich 
patients. All conversed of the fortune of war, which 
allowed one man to grow gray under hardships and 
honors, but let another fall by the first shot in the 


98 THE CHARLES MEN 


spring of his days. No drinking-songs rang out, 
but the king had kettledrumsand oboes play mer- 
rily all night. It was a camp where that soft noise 
was like the murmur of a clear forest brook under 
leafage dewy with June. 

Against the wish of the king, his bodyguards 
had wound his tent with hay and on that had laid 
sod, so that it was like a charcoal-kiln. It stood, 
not in the middle of the camp, but on the outer- 
most edge and almost in darkness. Within, by the 
tent-pole, they had built a fireplace of stones and 
had brought there time and again a red-hot cannon- 
ball. There was a wash-basin of pure silver, and on 
the table, beside the Life of Alexander the Great 
and the gold-bound Bible, stooda little silver-plated 
image of the dog Pompey, which had died. But the 
light blue silken brocade on the chair and field-bed 
was already worn and spotted. In the middle of the 
tent crouched the dogs, Turk and Snuffer, but the 
king lay among the fir-twigs on the ground. The 
small beer was done, and the lackey Hultman had 
had nothing but a glass of melted snow and two 
slack-baked biscuits to offer him for supper. After 
that he had spread his cape over him and put on his 
embroidered nightcap. There now, at the midday 
height of his victories, slept the king of the Swedes, 
and his narrow head was turned toward the lan- 
guishing gleam of the last glowing cannon-ball. It 
was long now since he had read the evening prayer 


FRENCH MONS 99 


which he had formerly stammered out in his room 
while the wind raged in the lindens of Karlberg 
Park. His god had gradually darkened into the 
thunderous god of the Old Testament, to the aveng- 
ing Lord of Sabaoth, whose commands he heard in 
his soul without needing to pray for them; and it 
was Thor and the Asar who drove around this camp 
in the rumbling of the nocturnal storm, and who 
with their trumpets hailed their youngest-born on 
earth. 

Then the dogs began to whimper and growl, and 
the half-grown Max of Wurtemberg, the Little 
Prince,.came, overjoyed and beaming, to the open- 
ing of the tent. 

“Your Majesty,” he cried, with his ringing boy- 
ish voice, ‘‘awake, awake! Five-and-twenty Sma- 
landers have been out and played with the enemy.” 

Behind him stood French Mons, proppedagainst 
the gallant Captain Schmiedeberg, who himself still 
went ona crutch after an engagement over the bag- 
gage, where he with twelve men had fought against 
three hundred Polacks. 

French Mons had never carried his head more 
proudly and contentedly, though he reeled with 
weariness; but when he heard that he was standing 
before the king’s tent, he stopped short in anxiety. 
He stooped and tremblingly wiped the bloodstains 
from his hands. His hat, the medium peruke, and 
the little peruke he threw upon the ground, and 


100 THE CHARLES MEN 


without considering the regulations, put on the 
great spliced peruke. When he got himself in order, 
he extended his arms along his sides and told his 
story stammeringly with chattering teeth. 

The king, who continued to sit on the fir-twigs, 
then slowly repeated it, investigating every word 
so as not to miss a single detail of the adventure. 
He rejoiced as a child would at a wonderful saga. 
Finally he gave him his hand. 

“ Oxehufvud spoke rightly,” he said. “ The gen- 
tlemen have had a pretty party with the enemy. It 
has been quiet enough here in camp, and I should 
myself have gladly been along. Since the Polish re- 
cluse begged in jest the loan of five louis d’or, I 
will leave him ten, and the gentleman shall go back 
and throw them in to him through the window.” 

French Mons went backward through the tent 
door, and Schmiedeberg caught him around the 
waist and conducted him into a ring of inquisitive, 
expectant comrades. There were ensigns and lieu- 
tenants and captains, who were his equals in age, 
but who had already risen higher in rank than he. 

“French Mons,” they murmured, “now no one 
any longer dares laugh at your lorgnettes and your 
wigs. But how did it go with your commission and 
certificate? The certificate!” 

“Quiet, quiet!”’ said Schmiedeberg. “ There are 
other rewards for the poor fellow. If His Royal 
Majesty might prevail, he would give no rewards, 


FRENCH MONS 101 
but would wish that each and all should fight and 


fall for honor alone.” 

No one dared contradict Schmiedeberg, and 
dropping the arm of his new-found charge, he 
limped on his crutch a few steps nearer the fire. 

“Did n’t you see?” he whispered — “did n’t you 
see that His Royal Majesty took him by the hand 
almost as an equal?” 

“There I got my certificate for time and eter- 
nity,” said French Mons. 

In his dripping spliced wig and ragged shirt he 
stood all the while upright with arms at his sides, 
and he still stammered in his speech and chattered 
his teeth. 

“And your charter as baron,” answered Schmie- 
deberg softly, “you get when you fall.” 


The Queen of the Marauders 


HE tocsin in the church tower at Narva had 

ceased. Ina breach of the battered rampart lay 
the fallen Swedish heroes, over whose despoiled 
and naked bodies the Russians stormed into the 
city with wild cries. Some Cossacks, who had sewed 
a live cat into the belly of an innkeeper, were stil] 
laughing in a circle around their victim, but the 
gigantic Peter Alexievitch, the czar, soon burst his 
way through the midst of the throng on street and 
courtyard and cut down his own men to check their 
misdeeds. His right arm. up to the shoulder was 
drenched with the blood of his own subjects. 
Weary of murder, troop after troop finally assem- 
bled in the square and the churchyard. Under the 
pretext that the churches had been desecrated by 
the misbelievers who lay buried there, bands of sol- 
diers began to violate and plunder the graves. 
Stones were pried up from the floor of the church 
with crowbars, and outside the graves were opened 
with shovels. Pillagers broke the copper and tin 
caskets into pieces, and threw dice for the silver 
handles and plates. The streets, where at the first 
mélée the inhabitants had thrown down firebrands 
and tiles, and where the blood of the slain was still 
running in the gutters, were for many days piled 
up with rusty or half-blackened coffins. The hair 
on some of the bodies had grown so that it hung 


THE OUEEN OF “THE MARAUDERS 103 


out between the boards. Some of the dead lay em- 
balmed and well preserved, though brown and 
withered, but from most of the coffins yellow skele- 
tons grinned forth from collapsed and mouldered 
shrouds. People who stole anxiously among them 
read the coffin-plates in the twilight, and now and 
then recognized the name of a near relative, a 
mother or a sister. Sometimes they saw the ravagers 
pull out the decayed remains and throw them into 
the river. Sometimes, again, protected by night, 
they themselves succeeded in carrying them offand 
burying them outside the city. So in the dusk one 
might encounter an old man or woman who came 
stealing along toilsomely with children or serving- 
maids, carrying a coffin. 

One night a swarm of pillagers bivouacked ina 
corner of the churchyard. Hi! what fun it was to 
pile up a bonfire of bed-slats and bolsters and chairs 
and coffin-ends and what the devil else could be 
dragged forth! Flames and sparks blazed up as high 
as the attic window of the parsonage. Round about 
stood coffins propped one against another. The 
bottom of one of the uppermost had been broken, 
so that the treasurer, of blessed memory, who was 
inside it, stood there upright with his spliced wig on 
his head and looked as if he thought: “I pray you, 
into what company have I been conducted?” 

“Haha! little father,” the robbers called to him, 
as they roasted August apples and onions at the 


104 THE CHARLES MEN 


flames; “you surely want something to wet your 
whistle, you there!” 

The glow of the fire lighted up the living-room 
of the parsonage, and the sparks flew in through the 
broken panes. In the rooms stood only a broken 
table and a chair, upon which sat the parson with 
his head propped on his hands. 

“Who knows? Perhaps it might succeed,” he 
mumbled, and raised himself as if he had found the 
key to a long-considered problem. 

His silver-white beard spread itself all over his 
breast, and his hair hung down to his shoulders. In 
his youth, as chaplain, he had gone in for a little of 
everything, and he had never pushed back a cup 
that was offered him. Afterwards, as a widower in 
the parsonage, he had worshipped God with joy 
and mirth and a brimming bowl, and it was bruited 
about that he did not reach first for his Bible if a 
well-formed wench happened to bein his company. 
He therefore even now took misfortune more 
bravely and resignedly than others, and his heart 
was as undaunted as his soldierly body was un- 
bowed by years. 

He went out into the entry and cautiously pulled 
out the five or six rusty nails that held down a 
couple of boards above a little narrow recess under 
the stairs. Then he lifted the boards aside. 

“Come out; my child!” ‘he said. 

When no one obeyed him, his voice grew some- 


THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS 105 


what more severe, and he repeated his words: 
“Come out, Lina! Both the other maids have been 
bound and carried away. It was verily at the last 
minute that I got you in here. But it is almost a day 
since then, and you cannot live without meat and 
drink. Eh?” 

When he was not obeyed, he threw back his 
head 1n annoyance, and he now spoke in accents of 
harsh command: “ Why don’t you obey? Do you 
think there is food here? There’s not so much as 
a pinch of salt left in the house. You must be got 
away, you understand. If it goes ill with you, if a 
plunderer gets you on the way, I can only say this: 
clasp your arms about his neck and follow with him 
on his horse’s back wherever it carries you. Many 
a time in the rough-and-tumble of war have I seen 
such a love, and then I have slung the soldier’s 
cloak over my priest’s frock and waved my hat fora 
lucky end to the song. Don’t you hear, lass? When 
your late father, who was a tippler—if I must tell 
the truth—was my stable-boy and pulled me out 
of a hole in the ice once, I promised for the future 
to provide for him and his child. Besides, he was 
Swedish born, as I was. Well, have n’t I always 
been a fatherly master to you, or what has Her 
Grace to object? Have her wits deserted her, eh?” 

Something now began to move in the pitch-black 
recess. An elbow struck against the wall, there was 
a rustling and scraping, and with that Lina Anders- 


106 THE CHARLES MEN 


daughter stepped out, barefooted, in nothing but 
her chemise and a torn red jacket without sleeves 
but with a whole back to it, over which hung the 
braid of her brown hair. 

The light of the fire fell in through the window. 
Squatted together, she held her chemise between 
her knees, but her fresh, downward-bent face with 
broad, open features was as merry as if she had just 
stepped out of her settle-bed on a bright winter 
morning in the light of the dawn. 

The blood ran impetuously enough through the 
veins of the white-haired chaplain, but in that mo- 
ment he was but master and father. 

-“T did not know that in my simple house folk had 
learned sucha ceremonious feeling of delicacy,” said 
he, and gave herafriendly pat on the bareshoulders. 

She looked up. 

““No,” she said, “it’s only because I’m so 
wretchedly cold.” 

“Ah, well, that’s natural. That’s the way I like 
people totalk in my house. But I have no garments 
to give you. My own hang on me in tatters. The 
house may burn at any time. I myself can maybe 
sneak out on my way unaccosted, and I have a 
Riga rix-dollar in my pocket. Who asks about a 
ragged old man? It’s another affair with you, Lina. 
t know these wild fellows. I know but one way to 
get you off, but I myself shrink from telling it. 
Naturally, you are afraid.” 


THE OUEEN; OF THE MARAUDERS 107 


“Afraid I’m not. It will go with me as it may. 
To be sure, I am no better than the others. Only 
I’m perishing of cold.” 

“Come here to the door, then, but don’t be 
frightened. Do you see out there in the doorway 
the rascals have set a little wooden casket. It can- 
not be very heavy, but I think you will have room 
in it. If you dare lay yourself in the casket, per- 
haps I can smuggle you out of the town.” 

“That I surely dare.” 

Her teeth chattered, and she trembled, but she 
straightened herself up a little, let the chemise hang 
free, and went out on the stones in the doorway. 

The pastor lifted off the moist lid, which was 
loose, and found nothing in the plundered casket 
but shavings and a brown blanket. 

“That was just what I needed,” she shivered. 
She pulled up the blanket, wrapped it over her, 
stepped up, and laid herself on her back in the shav- 
ings. 

The pastor bent over her, laid both his hands on 
her shoulders, and looked into her fearless eyes. 
She might be eighteen or nineteen years old. Her 
hair was stroked smoothly back to the braid. 

As he stood so, it came over him that he had not 
always looked on her in the past with as pure and 
fatherly feelings as he himself had wished and as he 
had pretended to do. But now he did so. His long 


white hair fell down as far as her cheeks. 


108 THE CHARLES. MEN 
“May it go well with you, child! I am old. It 


matters little whether my life goes on for a while 
still or is destroyed in the day that now is. I have 
been in many a piece of mischief and many an ill 
deed in my time, and for the forgiveness of my 
sins I will also for once have part in something 
good.” 

He nodded and nodded toward her and raised 
himself. 

There outside the clamor sounded louder than 
ever. He laid on the lid and fastened in as well as 
he could the long screws that had been left in their 
places. Then he knelt, knotted a rope crosswise 
around the casket, and with strong arms lifted the 
heavy burden on his back. Bending forward and 
staggering, he strode out into the open air. 

“Look there!” shouted one of the pillagers at 
the fire, but his nearest comrade silenced him with 
the word: “Let the poor old man alone! That’s 
only a miserable beggar’s casket.” 

Sweat trickled out over the old man’s face,and his 
back and arms ached and smarted under the heavy 
weight. Step by step he moved forward through the 
dark streets. Every now and then he had to set the 
casket down on the ground to take breath, but then 
he stood with his hand on the lid in constant fear 
of being challenged and hustled away or of being 
stabbed by some roving band of soldier revellers. 
Several times he had to step to one side because of 


THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS tog 


the heavy wagons, loaded with men and women, 
who were to be taken hundreds of miles into Russia 
to people the waste regions. The great conquering 
czar was a sower who did not count the seeds he- 
strewed. 

When finally the old war-pastor reached the town 
gate, and the watch came to meet him, he roused 
his strength to the utmost with all the collected 
will-power of his anxiety. With a single arm he 
held the casket in place on his back, while with 
his free hand he drew the Riga rix-dollar from his 
pocket and handed it to the sentry as a bribe. 

The soldier motioned to him to go on. 

He wanted again to move his foot forward, but 
now he was unable. Through the town gate he saw 
the river glimmer on the open plain, but then it 
grew dark before his eyes. Still afraid for his bur- 
den in his helplessness, he softly and cautiously 
lowered the casket beside him on the stone flag- 
ging. Thereupon he fell forward and died. 

The other men of the watch sprang forward and 
began to curse and complain. No casket could re- 
main standing there in the door of the gateway. 

The officers, who were sitting and gambling in 
a room of the casemate, now came likewise to the 
spot. One of them, a little dry, weather-beaten fig- 
ure with rectangular spectacles, who was more like 
a clerk than a soldier, took a lantern, came forward, 
and held the lid slightly ajar with his scabbard. 


110 THE CHARLES MEN 


First he drew back his head precipitately, nearly 
dropping the lantern. The next time he bent down 
and looked in, he dwelt on the action longer and 
more searchingly, and afterwards passed his hands 
over his whole face to hide his thoughts. Then 
he unhooked his spectacles and stood pondering. 
When he bent the third time, he sent the light back 
and forward through the crevice,— and there in- 
side lay Lina Andersdaughter quite calmly, screw- 
ing up her eyes at him in the lantern’s light without 
herself knowing what was going on. 

‘“T’m hungry,” she said. 

He laid aside the lantern and went a couple of 
paces up and down through the door with hands 
crossed behind his back. There came then into his 
frigid expression a sly and merrily vibrating life, 
and unnoticed he took some August apples and 
thrust them into the casket. Thereupon he began 
to give commands. 

“Come here, boys! Let eight men take the casket 
to General Ogilvy, salute him, and say that this is 
a small gift from his humble servant, Ivan Alexie- 
vitch. Eight of you others who have just come from 
working on the walls go after it, and roll up your 
leather aprons like trumpets in which you are to 
blow the regimental march. But in front of all, two 
men are to go with rushlights. Forward, march!” 

The savage soldiers looked open-mouthed at 
one another and obeyed. Laughing, they lifted the 


THE OUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS “aia 


casket on their muskets. Two long stalks, tarred 
and twisted about with straw, were brought for- 
ward from a corner of the gateway and lighted at 
the lantern; and as the procession set itself in mo- 
tion into the field toward the camp, the musicians 
tooted the march in their aprons: 


O you, who have chosen a gun to bear, 

You care not for lodging or bed, lad, 

You feed like a prince on the finest fare, 

Of girls and of lice you’ve enough and to spare, 
But when will you ever be paid, lad? 


When they came to the camp, the soldiers rushed 
together around them in the torchlight. General 
Ogilvy, who was sitting at table, came out of his 
tent. 

“ Beloved little father,” said one of the bearers, 
* Lieutenant Ivan Alexievitch humbly sends you 
this gift.” 

Ogilvy grew pale and bit his lips under his bushy 
gray moustache. His face, wrinkled and strained to 
harshness, was at bottom good-natured and friendly. 

“Ts he out of his right mind?” he thundered 
with pretended wrath, though in reality he was as 
frightened as a boy. ‘Put down the casket and 
break off the lid!” 

The soldiers pried it open with their blades, and 
the dark lid rattled to one side. 

Ogilvy stared. With that he burst out laughing. 


1i2 THE CHARLES MEN 


He guffawed so that he had to sit down on an 
earthen bench. And the soldiers laughed, too. They 
laughed down through the whole lane of tents, so 
that they reeled and tottered and had to support 
themselves one against another like drunkards. 
Lina Andersdaughter lay there in the casket with a 
half-eaten apple in her hand and made great eyes. 
She had now become warm again,and was as bloom- 
ing of cheek as a doll. 

“ By all the saints,” Ogilvy burst out.“ Not even 
in the catacombs of St. Anthony has man seen such 
a miracle. This is a corpse that ought to be sent to 
the czar himself.” 

“By no means,” answered one of his officers. 
“T sent him two little fair-haired baggages day 
before yesterday, but he cares only for thin bru- 
nettes.”’ 

“So it is,” answered Ogilvy, and turned himself, 
bending, toward Narva. “Salute Ivan Alexievitch 
and say that, when the casket is returned, there 
shall lie in the bottom of it a captain’s commission. 
— Hey, sweetheart!” 

He went forward and stroked Lina Anders- 
daughter under the chin. 

But at that she sat up, took hold of his hair, and 
gave him a resounding box on the ear, and after that 
another. 

He did not let it affect him in the least, but con- 
tinued to laugh. 


THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS 113 


“That ’s the way I like them,” he said; “that’s 
the way I like them. I will make you Queen of the 
Marauders, my chick, and as token thereof I give 
you here a bracelet with a turquoise in the clasp. A 
band of our worst rabble stole it just now from the 
casket of Countess Horn in Narva.” 

He shook the chain from his wrist, and she 
caught it eagerly to her. 

When, later in the evening, the cloth was laid in 
the tent, Lina Andersdaughtersat at the table beside 
Ogilvy. She had now got French clothes of flowered 
brocade, and wore a headdress with blonde lace. 
But what hands! She managed to eat with gloves, 
but under them swelled the big, broad fingers, and 
the red shone between the buttons. 

‘“Hoho! hoho!” shouted the generals. “Those 
hands make a man merrier than he would get with 
a whole flask of Hungary. Help! Tighten our 
belts! Hold us under the arms! It will be the 
death of us!” 

Meanwhile she filled her plate, munched sweet- 
meats, and sat with her spoon in the air. If anything 
tasted bad, she made a face. Eat she could. Drink, 
on the contrary, she would not, but only took a 
swallow in her mouth, and then spurted the wine 
over the generals. But all their curses and worst 
expressions she picked up, while she sat ever alike 
blooming and gay. 

“Help! help!” shrieked the generals, choked 


114 THE CHARLES MEN 


with laughter. “ Blow out the light so we can’t see 
her! Hold our foreheads! Help! Will you have a 
little puff of a tobacco pipe, mademoiselle?”’ 

“Go to the deuce! Can’t I sit in peace?” an- 
swered Lina Andersdaughter. 

There was one thing, though, that Ogilvy skil- 
fully concealed, so that the laughers should not 
turn to him and nudge him in the ribs and pull his 
coat tails and say: ‘‘Oho, little father, you ’ve got 
into water too deep for your bald head. Bless you, 
little father, bless you and your little mishap !”’ 

He pretended always to treat her with slightly 
indifferent familiarity, but he never sat so near her 
that his dog could not jump up between them. He 
never took hold of her so that any one saw it, and 
never when no one saw it either, for then he knew 
that her hand would catch him on the face, so that 
the glove would split, and the red shine out in all 
its strength. It was a fact that, notwithstanding, she 
now and then gave him a slap in the middle of the 
face, and no one did she snub worse than him. But 
at all this he only laughed with the others, so that 
never before had there been in the camp such a 
clamor and bedlam. 

Sometimes he thought of knouting her, but he 
was ashamed before the others, because everything 
could be heard through the tent, and he feared that 
they then would the more easily guess how things 
stood, and how little he got along with the girl. 


THB QUEEN. OF THE MARAUDERS: 115 


“Wait,” he thought, “we shall be sitting alone 
sometime behind locked doors. Just wait! Till then 
things may go on as they do.” 

“Help, help!” shouted the generals. ““That’s 
how she carries her train. We must take hold of it. 
Lord, Lord, no; but just look!” 

“Take it up, you,” said she. “Take it up, you. 
That ’s what you are for.” 

And so the generals were cuffed and bore her 
train, both when she came to the table and when 
she went. 

Then it happened one evening, when she sat 
among the drinking old men, that an adjutant 
stepped in, hesitating and embarrassed. He turned 
to Ogilvy. 

Date. be. tran. 

“Naturally, my lad.” 

“‘ And whatever I say will be forgiven?” 

“By my honor. Only speak out!”’ 

“The czar is on his way out to the camp.” 

“Very good, he is my gracious lord.” 

The adjutant pointed at Lina Andersdaughter. 

“The czar has a fancy for tall brunettes,” said 
Ogilvy. 

“Your Excellency, in these last days he has 
changed his taste.” 

“God! Call the troops to arms—and forward 
with the three-horse wagon!” 

Now the alarm was struck. Drums rolled, trum- 


116 THE CHARLES MEN 


pets blared, weapons clattered, and shouts and tram-. 
pling filled the night. The drinking party was broken 
up, and Lina Andersdaughter was set in a baggage 
wagon. 

Beside the peasant who was driving a soldier 
sprang up with a lighted lantern, and she heard the 
peasant softly inquire of him the purpose of the 
flight. ; 

“The czar,’ answered the soldier in a mono- 
tone, and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder 
at the girl. 

At that the peasant shrunk together as at a frost- 
cold breeze, and whipped the small, shaggy horses 
more and more wildly. He hallooed and beat and 
urged them into a thundering gallop. The lantern 
light fell caressingly on the fir bushes and the burnt 
homesteads; the wagon banged and tottered among 
the stones, and creaked in its joints. 

Lina Andersdaughter lay on her back in the hay, 
and looked at the stars. Whither was she carried? 
What fate awaited her? She wondered and won- 
dered. On her wrist hung the bracelet asa talisman, 
a pledge for the accomplishing of Ogilvy’s wonder- 
ful prediction. Queen of the Marauders! It sounded 
so grand, though at first she had but gradually dis- 
covered what the word really betokened. She 
stroked and plucked at the small silver rings. Then 
she sat up and scanned the stony road in the lan- 
tern’s light. Cautiously she moved further and fur- 


THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS 117 


ther out. Unnoticed, she climbed slowly over the 
wagon-sill and lowered her feet to the ground. 
Would she be crushed and left lying? For a few 
steps she dragged along. Then she lost her hold, 
stumbled, and fell lacerated among the bushes. 

On thundered the baggage wagon with its three 
galloping horses, and the lantern light vanished. 
Then she got up and wiped off the blood from her 
cheeks, while she wandered forth into the trackless 
woods. 

When she met barbarous-looking fugitives, and 
they saw her pretty face, they at once picked berries 
and mushrooms for her and followed along. She 
got a whole court of ragamuffins, and she treated 
them so ill that they scarcely dared to touch her 
dress, but sometimes they stabbed one another. 
Finally she took service with a skipper’s wife, who 
was to sail with her husband to Danzig. Scarcely 
had it begun to grow dark when the ragamuffins 
came out one after another and took service for 
nothing. The skipper sat on his cabin in the moon- 
light, blew his shepherd’s pipe, and congratulated 
himself on having got such a willing crew. And 
never had the old woman seen a stronger serving- 
maid. But hardly had they put to sea when Lina 
Andersdaughter sat herself beside the skipper with 
her arms crossed, and all the ragamuffins lay on 
their backs and sang in tune with the pipe. 

“To you think [Il scour your bunks?” said she. 


118 THE CHARLES MEN 


“Beat her, beat her,” cried the old woman, but 
the skipper only moved nearer, and blew and blew 
on his pipe. Night and day the vessel rocked on 
the bright waves with slack sail, and the skipper 
played for Lina Andersdaughter, who danced with 
her ragamuffins; but down in the cabin sat the old 
woman, crying and lamenting. 

When they came to Danzig, the skipper stuck 
the pipe under his arm and slunk off the vessel at 
night with Lina Andersdaughter and her ragamuf- 
fins. They guessed now that she thought of going 
to the Swedish troops in Poland and compelling 
the king himself to give her his hand. 

When she with her followers stepped, humming, 
in among the Swedish women of the camp, there 
was uproar and alarm, because for two days they 
had sat by their wagons without food. The last 
provisions had been delivered to the sutlers and 
divided among the soldiers. Then she stepped for- 
ward to the first corporal she happened on and set 
her hands on her hips. 

“Are n’t you ashamed,” said she, “to let my 
women starve, when in spite of all you can’t get 
along without them?”’ 

“Your women? Who are you?” 

She pointed to her bracelet. “am Lina Anders- 
daughter, the Queen of the Marauders, and now 
take five men and follow us!” 

He looked toward his captain, the reckless Jacob 


THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS 119 
Elfsberg; he looked at her pretty face and at his 


men. How the line surrounded her with their mus- 
kets, and the women armed themselves with whip- 
handles and pokers! At night, when the light of the 
camp-fire tinged the heavens, the king, inquisitive, 
got into his saddle. As the wild throng came back 
with well-laden wagons and oxen and sheep, the 
troops cheered louder than ever: “Hurrah for King 
Charles! Hurrah for Queen Caroline!” 

The women thronged about the king’s horse, so 
that the lackeys had to hold them back, and Lina 
Andersdaughter went to him to shake hands with 
him. But he thereupon rose in his stirrups, and 
shouted over the women’s heads to the corporal and 
the five soldiers: ‘‘ That ’s well maraudered, boys!” 

From that moment she would never hear the 
king named, and whenevershe meta man, she flung 
her sharpest abuse right in his face, whether he was 
plain private or general. When Malcomb Bjork- 
man, the young guardsman— who, however, was 
already famous for his exploits and wounds — held 
out his hand to her, she scornfully laid in it her 
ragged, empty purse; and she was never angrier 
than when she heard General Meyerfelt whistling 
as he rode before his dragoons, or recognized Colo- 
nel Grothusen’s yellow-brown cheeks and raven- 
black wig. But if a wounded wretch lay beside the 
road, she offered him the last drop from her tin 
flask and lifted him into her wagon. Frost and 


120 THE CHARLES MEN 


scratches soon calloused her cheeks. High on the 
baggage wagon she sat with the butt of a whip and 
commanded all the wild camp-followers, loose 
women, lawful wives, and thievish fellows that 
streamed to them from east and west. When at 
night the flare of a fire arose toward heaven, the 
soldiers knew that Queen Caroline was out on a 
plundering raid. 

Days and years went by. Then, after the jolly 
winter quarters in Saxony, when the troops were 
marching toward the Ukraine, the king commanded 
that all women should leave the army. 

“Teach him to mind his own affairs!”? mut- 
tered Lina Andersdaughter, and she very tranquilly 
drove on. 

Butwhenthe army came tothe Beresina, there was 
murmuring and lamenting among the women. They 
gathered around Lina Andersdaughter’s cart and 
wrung their hands and lifted their babies on high. 

“‘See what you have to answer for! The troops 
have already crossed the river and broken all the 
bridges behind them. They have left us as prey to 
the Cossacks.” 

She sat with her whip on her knee and with high 
boots, but on her wrist still gleamed the silver 
chain with its turquoise. All the more violently did 
the terrified women sob and moan around her, and 
from the closed baggage wagons, which were like 
boxes, crept out painted and powdered Saxon hus- 


THE -OUEREN-VOF THE MARAUDERS 121 


sies. Some of them, none the less, had satin gowns 
and gold necklaces. From all sides came women she 
had never seen before. 

“Dirty wenches!” muttered she. ““Now at last 
I have a chance to see the smuggled goods that 
the captains and lieutenants brought along in their 
wagons. What have you to do among my poor 
baggage crones? But now we all come to know what 
a man amounts to when his haversack is getting 
light.” 

Then they caught hold of her clothes, and called 
upon her as if she alone could seal their fate. 

‘Ts there no one,” she asked, “‘who knows the 
psalm, ‘When I am borne through the Vale of 
Death’? Sing it, sing it!” 

Some of the women struck up the psalm with 
choked and nearly whispering voices, but the others 
rushed down to the river, hunted out boats and 
wreckage from the bridges, and rowed themselves 
across. Fach and every one who had a husband 
or a beloved in the army had hoped that even at 
the last she would be taken along and hidden; but 
all the worst women of the rabble, who belonged 
neither to this man nor to that, stood with their 
rags or their tasteless, ridiculous gowns in a ring 
around Lina Andersdaughter. Meanwhile swarms 
of Cossacks, who had crossed the river to snap up 
any straggling marauders, were sneaking up through 
the bushes on their hands and knees. 


P22 - THE CHARLES MEN 
Then her heart failed her, and she stepped down 


from the wagon, 

“Poor children!” she said, and patted the hus- 
sies on the cheek. “Poor children, I will not desert 
you. But now—devil take me!—do you pray to 
God that He will make your blood-red sins white, 
for I have nothing else to offer you than to shame 
the men and die a hero’s death.” 

She opened the wagon chest and hunted out 
from among her plunder some pikes and Polish 
sabres, which she put into the hands of the softly 
singing women. Thereupon she herself grasped a 
musket without powder or shot, and set herself 
among the others around the cart to wait. So they 
stood in the sunset light on the highest part of the 
shore. 

Then the women on the river saw the Cossacks 
rush forward to the cart and cut down one after 
another of them with the idea that they were men 
in disguise. They wanted to turn their boats, and 
soldiers sprang down from their ranks to the water 
and opened fire. 

“Hurrah for King Charles,” they cried with a 
thousand intermingled voices; ‘‘and hurrah—No, 
it’s too late. Look, look! There is Queen Caroline 
dying a virgin in the midst of the harlots with a 
musket in her hand!” 


Mazeppa and His Ambassador 


N a splendidly decorated sleeping apartment 
stood a high bed with plumes at the corners. 
Behind the half-drawn bed-curtain lay an old man 
of sixty-three with the coverlet pulled up under his 
beard, his long white hair spread over the pillow. 
His whole forehead was hidden under a plaster. It 
was Mazeppa. 

Beside the bed, among cups of medicine on the 
carpet, lay several books of Latin and French 
poetry,and at the doora little wizened priest carried 
on a whispered conversation with two green-clad 
messengers from Czar Peter. 

“He scarcely comprehends your words,” whis- 
pered the priest, giving a painfully searching look 
toward the sick man. “ He even lies speechless for 
long periods. Who could have imagined that the 
old man with his joy of life would suddenly lie on 
his death-bed?”’ 

“Ivan Stefanovitch,” one of the strangers said 
with raised voice, approaching the bed, “our mag- 
nanimous czar, your lord, sends you greeting. Do 
you remember? Those three Cossacks of yours who 
stole off to him and related that you secretly 
planned a rebellion against his over-lordship, he 
has had them fettered and returned to you as gifts 
of friendship. Ivan Stefanovitch, he relies on your 
lovalty.” 


124 THE CHARLES MEN 
Mazeppa’s eyes opened feebly and his lips 


moved, but he was only able to utter an unintelli- 
gible whisper. 

“We understand you,” cried the messengers, 
speaking all at once. ‘We understand you. You 
greet him and thank him for his favor, and we 
are to say to him that you are bowed under your 
years and that you have already turned all your 
thoughts to that which is not of this world.” 

“I fear,” murmured the priest to them aside, 
“that here it will soon be over.” 

The messengers nodded sadly, and backed out 
of the sleeping apartment. 

As soon as they were out, the priest bolted the 
door. 

““They have gone,” he said. 

Mazeppa sat up and tore the plaster from his 
brow, throwing it far across the carpet. His dark 
wide-open eyes gleamed and twinkled. A flush rose 
and paled on his cheeks, and under the handsomely 
curving nose shone teeth as white and fresh as 
a youth’s. He tossed away the coverlet and, fully 
clad from tip to toe in long-coat and boots with 
spurs, he sprang from the bed, and jestingly 
pinched the priest in the ribs. 

“You little rascal priest, you! You vagabond! 
This time we didn’t manage badly. In Moscow 
they will believe that old Mazeppa is lying help- 


less and harmless. God be gracious to his pious 


MAZEPPA AND HIS AMBASSADOR | 125 


soul! Haha-hey! You little rascal priest, you! You 
arch-hypocrite!” 

The priest laughed dryly. He was a deposed 
bishop from Bulgaria, and his round head with its 
short nose and deep-sunken eyes was like a skull. 

Mazeppa grew still livelier. 

““Mazeppa dying! Ay, ask his mistresses! Only 
ask them! No, my great Muscovite czar, you, now 
I am going to live and be quits with you.” 

“The czar suspects you, my lord, but he wishes 
to disarm you with magnanimity. He can be like 
that.” 

“And I should have been conquered by it, if 
one night at table, when we were drunk, he had 
not struck me on the ear. I value my ear as he does 
his, and an insult I can never forgive. It sticks in 
the soul and frets and gnaws. If I am not a king 
by birth, I am one in soul. And what does he want 
with his German coats on my splendid Cossacks? 
Now to business! Relate your adventures, you 
Hanis 

“My lord, dressed as a mendicant monk, I went 
forth on my way to the Swedish headquarters. 
Sometimes I set a tavern lass on my knee and a 
can on the table corner, but when I peeped down 
and saw the toes sticking out of my ragged shoes, 
I thought to myself: his is Mazeppa’s ambassa- 
dons 


“Very good, but how did you find the dandy?” 


126 THE CHARLES MEN 


“The dandy?” 

“To be sure. His Swedish Majesty, King Caro- 
lus. Don’t you believe he dandifies as much with 
his grimy rags as any French prince of scented 
water with his silk stockings? And he possesses that 
wonderful Northern recklessness which continually 
snaps a riding-whip and cries: ‘Rubbish! that’s 
nothing! It’s no matter!’—He has never been able 
to grieve for a misfortune longer than overnight. 
That has been the secret of his power. Woe to him 
and his fate when he sits up night after night with- 
out sleep! I am curious to see him. I long for it. 
But tell on!” 

“First I found him in wig and armor on the 
tavern lass’s neckcloth or pinafore, and on the 
glass from which I drank, and on the icing I ate, 
and on table-cloths and chest-lids and tobacco-boxes 
and market-booths. No one spoke of anything else 
than of him, and the children arranged themselves 
and played at Swedish divine service. The old peas- 
ants called him the sword-pope of the Protestants 
chosen by God Himself, and took off their hats in 
speaking of him.” 

“Ah yes, but how did you find him himself, 
when you came to headquarters?” 

“‘T warn you. I predict misfortunes. Il sawan omen. 
I found him puffed up and haughty of spirit.” 

“As a great personality of whom the world be- 
gins to disapprove.” . 


MAZEPPA AND HIS AMBASSADOR | 127 


“‘ Marlborough, after an audience in Saxony, left 
his camp with a shrug of the shoulders, and sover- 
eigns begin to laugh at him behind his back. His 
own generals have grown weary.” 

“He has become a hero of the rabble, you think. 
Well, even then, that’s the sort of man I need to 
gather the wild hordes. If you do not assure me 
that you have seen him eat and drink, I cannot 
believe that he is a living human being. Then I 
should have to say: The young prince of the 
Swedes fell in the tumult of victory at Narva, but 
his shade rides ever on before his troops. Snow falls 
and falls,and drumsrattle andrumble,and the thin- 
ning battalions do not know and do not under- 
stand whither he leads them. When the enemy rec- 
ognize him in the powder-smoke, they lower their 
muskets in superstitious awe and dare not shoot, 
and he does not notice that sometimes he cuts down 
men who are making ready to fall on their knees. 
Hired assassins throw down their weapons at sight 
of him and give themselves up—and he lets them 
go unpunished. Don’t talk to him about states and 
treaties! He does not fight for possessions as men 
do; he wields the sword of God to revenge and re- 
ward. What did he require just now as the reward 
of victory at the conclusion of peace? Money? 
Land? Of Austria he required a councillor who had 
slandered him at table and a swarm of Russian sol- 
diers who had fled in over the border—and free- 





128 THE CHARLES MEN 


dom of conscience for the Protestants. Of Prussia 
he demanded the imprisonment of a colonel who 
had given counsel to the czar, and banishment for 
a writer who had cavilled at his stipulations against 
the Pietists. Of Saxony he demanded Patkull and 
all Swedish renegades, but freedom for the Princes 
Sobieski and all Saxons who had gone over to the 
Swedes. King August himself he compelled to pack 
up the old Polish regalia in a velvet trunk and send 
them to King Stanislaus. And now, since he has de- 
posed King August in Poland, he wants to depose 
the czar or challenge him to a duel, but their crowns 
and governments he would not even take as a gift. 
Since antiquity no stranger man has held a sword 
or a sceptre.” 

Mazeppa, while he was speaking, grasped one 
of the bedposts so hard that the plumes of the 
silken canopy shook. 

But the other lifted three fingers and replied: 
“IT have warned you. Everything that he touches 
he dedicates to misery and death. Yet he is the pa- 
tron saint of adventurers. He has raised adventure 
to stability and greatness. You too, my lord, are an 
adventurer, and I myself am the worst adventurer 
of you all. Therefore I will be compliant.” 

He lowered his hand and drew near with dis- 
respectful familiarity. ““You, Ivan Stefanovitch! 
Have you never wondered that I directed my steps 
to your particular door?” 


MAZEPPA AND HIS AMBASSADOR _ 129 


“You were driven from your episcopal see be- 
cause of your unfaith and your pranks.” 

“Tt really amounted to a little pilfering of small 
import. There were on the ikon-stand a couple of 
emeralds—”’ 

“Which you replaced with bits of glass and in 
all secrecy sold,so that you might live more bounti- 
fully and ina manner more worthy a servant of the 
church.” 

“Let us say no more about it!—So I heard of 
Mazeppa, the former page at Johann Casimir’s 
court, who in his powdered wig was attentive to the 
wayward sex so long that a jealous husband at last 
bound him naked on a horse’s back and drove him 
forth into the wilderness. And there he built up a 
kingdom of adventurers. Saint Andrew guarded 
you, Mazeppa. I needed a little master who would 
be ashamed to strike off a good head, who would let 
me read my Greek and my Machiavelli in peace, 
and to whom I might say: ‘Agreed, old fellow! It’s 
all a shadow play, even this that you are lord and 
I servant.’ Therefore I came to you. My adven- 
turer’s blood cannot bear to sit still, and I weary of 
your wine mixed with water, for you are a great 
miser, Mazeppa; but as you are now pondering a 
financial transaction in musket-balls, I follow you. 
And as the Swedish king no longer listens to his 
generals or to the beseeching letters from his grand- 
mother and his people, and comes hither by the 


130 THE CHARLES MEN 


most perilous and impossible roads, he wishes to 
accept your offer of an alliance. With you and your. 
Cossacks he will march against your lord. Here are 
the papers.” 

The priest shook off his cope and stood in Cos- 
sack dress with pistols in his girdle, and from his 
bosom he drew forth some folded papers. 

Mazeppa grew pale, seized them, and held them 
pressed long to his mouth, while he sank his fore- 
head and bowed as before the invisible image of a 
saint. 

“Drums, drums!” he stammered in agitation. 

But when the priest had got to the door, he 
checked him. 

“No, don’t let the drums strike up before to- 
morrow. 

Thereupon he went to a plain wooden table ina 
little side-room, and sat dowh over his account 
books. He had his bailiffs summoned, and calcu- 
lated and calculated, and prescribed greater econ- 
omy in the milk department. Half a merry knight 
of the roads and half a learned but thrifty propri- 
etor of lands, he finally superintended the packing 
of his many trunks and boxes. Sometimes he bent 
down and helped. Last of all, next morning he put 
on an old-fashioned and much-adorned Cossack 
costume. Impetuous and active, he sprang up from 
his chair as soon as he had sat down, but he re- 
mained standing before the mirror for some little 


MAZEPPA AND HIS AMBASSADOR 131 


time, now and then running his delicate, small white 
hand through his beard. 

As soon as the music was heard, he mounted to 
the saddle and kept his charger constantly at a 


gallop. 


When, after a time, he had come to the Swedes 
and was riding one morning through a flurry of 
snow in the king’s retinue, the priest, as if by acci- 
dent, pulled up his horse alongside him. Round 
about the troops marched past, sprinkled with 
grime, their weapons and cannon covered to pre- 
vent rusting. Baggage wagons clattered along with 
their weight of provision sacks and sick men, and 
sometimes with a covered coffin. Last were driven 
massed herds of cattle. Drunken Zaporogeans, 
prancing Cossacks, and eagerly drumming Polish 
Wallachians rode in green and red cloaks and with 
high brass helmets on which bells were tinkling. 
Some were brandishing tufted spears and bows or 
long flint-locks inlaid with silver and ivory. Others 
played on a sort of wailing wooden pipe. It was a 
colorful, legendary sort of march, that went over 
untrodden and unknown forest paths, over frozen 
marshes, and under snowy fir trees toward the mys- 
terious East. 

“Mazeppa,” the priest began in a low voice, 
“you promised to come to the Swedes with thirty 


132 THE CHARLES MEN 


thousand Cossacks, but hardly four thousand fol- 
lowed you.” 

Mazeppa kept his roan at a gallop, and nodded 
in silence, and the priest never wearied of his gibes. 

“Day before yesterday half of these went off. 
Yesterday more still. Soon you will have barely a 
couple of hundred fellows, barely the servants who 
watch over your trunks and the two barrels with 
your money. Your uprising was betrayed, your cities 
are burned, your few faithful men nailed on boards 
and thrown into rivers. Soon you will be nothing 
but a gorgeous knight in the train of the Swedish 
king.” 

As Mazeppawas still, the priest continued: “To- 
day I too will abandon you, because the small beer 
of the Swedes tastes sour to me, and my toes stick 
out too far from my shoes. Your ambassador needs 
a richer lord. Farewell, Ivan Stefanovitch!”’ 

Mazeppa replied, ““As long as I have still my 
headand my philosophy, I remain Mazeppa. While 
my Cossacks turned and broke away, I had the het- 
man staff and mace carried before me, and I rode 
on to the king as if I had come in front of Xerxes’ 
millions. And he, with his impoverished realm, his 
discontented generals, and his sinking sun, came 
toward me like the most fortunate among princes. 
What does it trouble him and me how many ride 
behind us? He has had enough of kingly honor, 


and wishes also to be a chosen man of God. He 


MAZEPPA AND HIS AMBASSADOR 133 


thinks of history as a man in love does of his 
sweetheart: he would not win her favor by his birth 
but by his person. If we two, he and I, should one 
day be the last survivors and sit in an earthen hut 
on the steppe, we should still continue to talk 
philosophy and treat each other as at a coronation 
dinner.” 

“You speak of his sinking sun. You have seen 
the omen, even you! He can no longer talk with- 
out boasting like a baggage driver.” 

“Tt is easy to be modest as long as everybody 
praises.” 

Mazeppa threw back his white-haired head with 
lofty contempt, and galloped forward to the king, 
who raised his hat and bowed and bowed again in 
his saddle. 

Round about several of the generals joked as 
loudly as possible so that the king might hear 
them. 

“ WhenI come to Moscow,” said Anders Lager- 
krona, “I shall mend the seat of my trousers with 
the czar’s night-cap.”’ 

“‘Pshaw!”’ answered Axel Sparre. “There is an 
old prophecy that a Sparre will some day be gov- 
ernor at the Kremlin.” 

“This way!” cried the ensigns. “Shoot down 
any one who dares to hinder sucha great and exalt- 
ed prince from marching forward wherever he 
chooses.” 


134 THE CHARLES MEN 


The king smiled and hummed: “Russia must 
run, Russia must run.” But when the speakers 
were no longer within his hearing, they were trans- 
formed and became absent and melancholy. 

“Your Majesty!” cried Mazeppa in crisp Latin 
and with kindling eyes, ‘“‘ Your Majesty’s conquer- 
ing arms go on so far that one fine morning we 
shall have hardly eight miles more to Asia.” 

“As to that the authorities used to disagree,” 
answered the king, moved, but hunting for the 
Latin words, his gaze fettered by Mazeppa’s white 
and pleasingly mobile hands. “If the border is not 
far off, we must go there, so that we can say we were 
also in Asia.” 

The voices died away, and the priest reined in 
his horse. 

“Asia!” he muttered, “‘Asia doesn’t lie in the 
middle of Europe. But ride on, ride on with you, 
my adventurous lords! I have changed my name 
and dress so many times that none of you Swedes 
will ever notice what I was. But do not forget that 
it was the ragged monk, the vagabond, Mazeppa’s 
ambassador, who by his cunning negotiations laid 
his blue-frozen finger on your and your demi-god’s 
fate and directed you into the wildernesses. You 
are right, King Carolus, and you, Mazeppa. Every- 
thing depends at the last on individual men.” 

It snowed and snowed, and he sat motionless 
on his lean horse, while the battalions marched by, 


MAZEPPA AND HIS AMBASSADOR 135 


silent and impatient. When the last soldiers turned 
and looked back at the solitary, unknown rider, 
and saw his little compressed death-skull head, 
they were seized with fear and hastened their steps. 


Fifty Years Later 
HEN the porridge had been eaten and the 


branch candles of tallow which shoneon both 
sides of the pewter dish stood more than half burnt 
out, the chairs were drawn close to the fire. The 
manor-house was one of the smallest and poorest 
in the district, but in the evening no poverty was 
visible there. The straw lay soft as a carpet over the 
floor planks, fresh juniper had been set beside the 
dark and streaming windows, the gleam from the 
open fireplace tinted with yellow the whitewashed 
wooden walls. Recently, too, a goblet of sherry had 
been offered about. All knew, furthermore, that the 
most festive time of the evening was now come. 
Even the two servant-girls, who wore to-day their 
best holiday jackets, cleared the table as slowly as 
possible and hid themselves, waiting, by the door, 
for now old Captain H6ok, a Charles man, brought 
out his tobacco-box and drew in the chair of honor 
to the middle place before the fire. It was, however, 
only after he had unlaced his brogans and laid his 
crossed feet with their thick white stockings on the 
fender to warm them thoroughly that he seemed 
to feel himself fully at ease. To be sure, he alone 
had carried on the conversation almost all the even- 
ing, and now at last spoke of Ehrencrona, who had 
received the Order of the Sword from King Fred- 


erick and never could wear it otherwise than in a. 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 137 


snuff-box. But in the same moment he became stern 
and reflective, and slipped into a new history. It 
was, indeed, alleged that he generally lied roundly, 
but nobody cared about that, for the principal thing 
was that he should keep on with his tales. 

He was already an elderly man with a frost-bitten 
lump of a nose. Both his hair, which was brushed 
forward, and his moustaches, which were twisted 
youthfully, had always been so light that nobody 
noticed whether the years had made one or another 
strand still whiter. And he sat on the chair in his 
scanty, buttoned-up coat as upright as formerly. 
Without any transition he began in his usual way. 


Yes, the autumn when I went astray in the woods 
I was certainly badly off. I mean the autumn down 
in Severia. Lewenhaupt had just made us destroy 
our last wagons, and was leading us along the Soza 
River to find a ford, so that when on the other side 
we might be able to grope our way forward to the 
king’s army; but many foot-soldiers had stopped to 
plunder the wagons. I was an ensign at that time. 
Together with several others, I was sent back by 
Major-General Stackelberg to master the fellows, 
but the Russians were already among them, and | 
scarcely knew in the darkness how I could manage 
to save myself across the river. When, dripping with 
water and mud, I stood in the heather on the farther 
bank, I stumbled on a dragoon private. He was 


138 THE CHARLES MEN 


from my own regiment, and we called him Long 
Jan, because he was one of the tallest and slimmest 
lads that ever lifted a Swedish blade. His chest was 
narrow, but his hands were large. His arms and legs 
seemed to have hardly a single muscle, and there 
was not a particle of down on his lean and simple 
face—a face any one would know again by the 
slanting eyes and the thick under lip.— God knows 
why he had ever been taken along. — But in that 
moment I was as glad to get sight of that lanky 
spectre as if I had met a sweetheart, and at random, 
but still as fast as we were able, we turned our steps 
into the forest. 

At the start we leaped along so as to get warm 
and dry our clothes, and not until dawn did we lie 
down to sleep. 

For many days after, we struggled on through 
the woods and swamps, and our clothes were still 
as wet as before. Once we took them off and hung 
them ona branch, but in the misty autumn air this 
helped but little, and we were only so much the 
colder when we succeeded, with great difficulty, in 
pulling them on again. As to our boots, there was 
no talk of getting them off. They dried temporarily 
during our progress, but soon became as completely 
soaked in a marsh, and one shower of rain followed 
another. 

I had with me a bit of meat and a piece of black 
bread, which I divided with my silent and, as it 


FIFTY YEARS. LATER 139 


seemed, submissive brother in misfortune, and after 
that we chewed leaves and twigs and anything we 
could find. Hunger, though, was not nearly such a 
gnawing plague as the continual chilly dampness, 
which made our teeth chatter even in our sleep. As 
our strength failed, our joints stiffened, so that we 
could not move them without pain. 

One evening we heard an unexpected barking, 
and for a moment I realized that I flushed with 
joy, but immediately after came hesitation, with 
thoughts of danger. I turned to the opposite direc- 
tion, and Long Jan followed me, silently as always, 
but when we had walked awhile, I noticed that we 
only came much nearer to the barking. Then I took 
the soldier by the arm and turned again toward the 
other side, but, similarly drawn by an irresistible 
inner attraction, we kept walking so that we came 
nearer and nearer to the dog. When I finally let go 
of Long Jan’s arm, he still went on. 

“Halt!” I called after him, excruciated with the 
damp and yet little minded to go straight into a 
hostile place where most likely axes would be the 
first things to greet us. 

“Halt, halt!’’ repeated Long Jan obediently, but 
in spite of that continued to go on. 

Then I raced up to him and caught him by the 
belt. As long as I held him, he stood quite straight 
and motionless, but as soon as I let go my hold, he 
went on. 


~ 


140 THE CHARLES MEN 


“ Halt! Stand!” I thundered, raging as if I had 
found myself under fire, and dumbfounded at such 
an abrupt and insubordinate obstinacy in a soldier 
who had learned ouriron-hard discipline. “ Will you 
not obey your own ensign, fellow?” 

“Halt! Stand!” he repeated, but continued onas 
before, as though no longer master of his own feet. 

“Come on, then, in Jesus’ name!” I burst out; 
“we can’t get it worse than it has been already. But 
now you have made yourself an ensign, though you 
are barely one of the rank and file, and me a com- 
mon soldier. Be so good as to lay that up in your 
memory!” 

Long Jan answered nothing, neither perhaps did 
he hear me. I resigned myself to following him, and 
after a few minutes we came out on a level clearing 
with many barns and houses. Right beside us stood 
a great wooden building with many stories. The sun- 
set glittered on the raindrops which hung on the 
cementing moss between the rough logs of the wall, 
and the window-panes glimmered as if lighted by 
countless chandeliers; but the door was locked, and 
no smoke came from the chimneys. The house was 
as a corpse with closed mouth and without breath, 
but with eyes hideously lighted by a cold gleam 
from without. Tied to a stake behind a straw-stack 
that had crookedly collapsed, a lean dog crept back 
and forth along the ground and wagged his tail 


when he saw us. 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 141 


Long Jan went straight forward to the door and 
banged on it, but no one opened. Then he drew his 
blade and smashed in the nearest window with the 
hilt. At that moment we heard from within a fright- 
ened woman’s voice shouting again and again to 
some one who was called Varvara. The broken glass 
fell tinkling, the leaden frame was bent on all sides 
into long hanging strips. Then running steps were 
heard in the house. The next moment the door was 
opened by a well-grown and stately serving-maid 
with a broad, light braid of hair down her back and 
a multitude of jingling silver pieces on her black 
hood and red and green bodice. In her hand she 
held an unlighted lantern, which in her terror she 
had presumably seized from habit. 

“We'll do no harm,’ I said, trying as well as I 
could to explain myself in the bothersome speech. 
“Heaven forbid such a horror, most gracious 
young lady! But we are nearly starved and above 
all we require—” 

“‘Dry clothes,” broke in Long Jan, shivering. 

That was the first time in the long wandering 
that I had heard this peculiar chap utter anything 
of his own accord, and then he had had the impu- 
dence into the bargain to take the word out of my 
mouth. When the girl turned around and left the 
door half open, he did indeed stand aside to give 
me place, but I remarked irritably: “The Herr 
Ensign will surely go first.” 


142 THE CHARLES MEN 


“God deliver me from any such thing,” he an- 
swered, and smacked his boot-heels together. But, 
partly cheered by the peaceful reception, partly 
still angry, I added in such a sharp tone of voice 
that he could not doubt my seriousness: “ Or else 
devil take the ensign!” 

Then he dragged his long legs in through the 
door ahead of me and, as the house had no entry, 
we found ourselves at once in a large hall, where 
a heating-stove of variegated porcelain rose like 
a tower to the middle of the ceiling. Along the 
walls, which consisted entirely of rough-hewn 
logs caulked with moss, stood several black-var- 
nished chairs, andona shelf gleamed pots of pewter. 

The serving-maid ran away and called Varvara, 
who finally appeared, dazed and frightened, in the 
farthest corner of the darkened hall. There the two 
girls tarried, whispering anxiously. 

After a while, however, they grew easier; and 
they could not keep from giving each other a look 
and feeling more accommodating when I unexpect- 
edly called them “gracious young ladies,” and ac- 
cordingly feigned not to understand that ey were 
poor serfs. That was a drop of warm oil on the hard 
wax, and they now told us that the noble masters 
had gone away two weeks ago at the report of the 
Swedes’ approach. They separately assured us that 
in the whole house, yes, in the whole place, there 
was nothing left of any value whatever, but that 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 143 


they would gladly do their best to serve the stran- 
gers. 

Varvara had pretty teeth, but she was too small 
and fat and black-fleeced, and after a while she let 
out such a piercing laugh that I was annoyed. The 
yellow-haired girl, who was called Katarina, on the 
other hand, I could not keep from pinching on the 
ear in fun, when she brought in wood to the stove. 
Meanwhile Long Jan had, without further cere- 
mony, pulled off his tattered blue coat, and as he 
had neither shirt nor vest, he soon stood naked to 
the waist in all his miserable leanness, so that no 
one could keep serious any longer—no one but 
himself. Never had I seen a cheerful twitch pass 
over that stolid face. After we had each of us got a 
sheepskin coat and stilled the worst hunger with 
a little mashed turnip and kvass, we laid us down 
by the stove with broadswords between our knees, 
and I ventured to order the Herr Ensign to watch 
with me alternately, in case any one could possibly 
have any evil in mind. I also forbade the two serv- 
ing-maids to leave the hall, and reading my prayers 
aloud in Swedish, entrusted us to the Almighty. 

But!— The Almighty lets us human beings now 
and then give each other surprises. When no one 
addressed me, I went on sleeping for hours, till I 
was waked by a piercing warmth, which at other 
times I should have called a pain, but which now 
at least reminded me that I was no longer a wan- 


144 THE CHARLES MEN 


dering skeleton, but a living man again. And still, 
who will not understand my terror when I| saw the 
heated hall dark and empty, and heard shrieks and 
clamor from the room adjoining. 

I at once took my broadsword and sprang to the 
door. There I saw a blazing cook-stove, and before 
it stood Long Jan in a checkered dressing-gown of 
bright silk and high-heeled shoes. Obviously the 
rascal had also skill in foraging, for a fowl sat al- 
ready on the spit, and in a bubbling pot he threw, 
higgledy-piggledy, everything he could gather from 
the half-sobbing girls. In the midst of this he took 
out of a broken cupboard one splendid glass after 
another, smashed it to pieces on the edge of the fire- 
place, and threw the fragments on the floor. I went 
forward and took the lanky loon around the body, 
but was not in a condition to remove him from the 
spot. Hisincredible obstinacy gaveagiant’sstrength 
to his slim body, and I was still exhausted by all the 
sufferings we had gone through. When he turned 
his face toward me, his eyes were glassily fixed, but 
I noticed a whiff of wine. Quite taken aback, I now 
let him go. He was drunk. 

The yellow-haired Katarina, who really seemed 
much more amused than frightened, meanwhile 
came up to me and told me in her soft voice — ho! 
old Captain Hook was young in those days and a 
pretty fellow—... Where were we now? Oh, ves, 
she said that he had gone from room to room, 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 145. 


hunted through everything, and broken the vases 
and clocks. Finally, in the cellar he had searched 
through all the vaults except one—except one— 
one—one, to which the key was lost, she added 
hurriedly. 

“But you, poor fellow, may also need some- 
thing,” she said to me, and pushed me into another 
room, which might have been called palatial. 
Around the walls hung woven greenish tapestries, 
on which Diana hunted a deer. The most splendid 
garments lay spread out over the slippery and shin- 
ing floor; the armchairs were gilded, and beside a 
dish in the middle of the table stood mugs which 
were not filled with sickening kvass, not even with 
ale, but with a clear, yellow wine. 

I, too, now lost my reason at the vision of all 
this magnificence, and my mistrust was somewhat 
eased because the two girls themselves seemed 
heartily delighted at having the chance to waste 
and destroy. They, too, felt themselves on hostile 
ground in the house where they had formerly had 
to go about as obedient and humble thralls. It was 
for them a moment of victory to be able to destroy 
the delicacies which they had never tasted, to throw 
themselves into proud reclining-chairs before which 
they had been forced to bow to the floor, and to 
trample on the costly garments which they had 
been scarcely deemed worthy to touch. They se- 
lected for mea coat of stiff cloth-of-silver, which 


146 - TH CHARLES. MEN 


had tails spread out with whalebone so that they 
were like a swelling skirt; and I got stockings and 
red shoes on the feet from which that evening I 
had ripped the boots with difficulty. Just the same, 
I did not dare to throw off the broadsword from 
my body, because I could not altogether put aside 
all doubts as to an ambush. 

With the wholly childlike frankness of a little 
heart-subduer Katarina clapped her hands, which 
in fact were neither white nor soft, and confessed 
that she felt really jolly, since with me, who was 
of the same class, they could be as they chose; 
whereas before the ensign, who was a fine gentle- 
man, they always had to be careful. 

I sat down to the table in one of the armchairs, 
which was nearly buried under my glittering coat 
tails, and on either side I invited one of the girls, 
and clinked glasses with them and drank. 

“The Herr Ensign is of very high extraction,” 
said I. “He will end as, it may be—yes, a coun- 
cillor of state.’—That was up to then my most 
unseasonable remark, because people who wield 
the pen—“ But the gracious young ladies know 
that the highborn sometimes, by an unlucky hap, 
may be born both foolish and simple-witted, and 
it is therefore that I regard myself obliged some- 
times to screw up his wits a little into the right 
groove, so to speak.” 

] have always had a fault as a soldier. I have 


FIFTY YEARS. LATER 147 


been able both to hack and to hew at the right 
time, but in the very act I have been too good- 
natured and accommodating. Therefore, too, I let 
Long Jan rummage in the kitchen however he 
chose, while I myself ate and drank to my heart’s 
content. But with every gulp I felt how the wine 
kept on taking away my wits. That I did not be- 
come more forward than I was toward my merry 
hostesses depended less on the virtue with which 
the Almighty has sometimes wisely endowed beauty 
than on the hardships I had gone through, which 
quickly enough changed the wine into a sleeping 
potion. Reflection told me that I should push the 
mug aside, but, in addition to the distress of the 
last days, the wine was irresistible. I fell asleep sit- 
ting with hands crossed over the pommel of my 
sword. 

“* Now I hear tiptoeing steps,” said I to myself 
in my dreams. “ They are coming yet nearer behind 
my chair. Now I must draw steel. But what’s that! 
I can move neither hand nor foot, though I am so 
much awake that I can see Diana and her grey- 
hounds on the tapestry. All the air 1s dancing vapor, 
which rustles around the faces of the prattling girls 
and the flames of the waxlights. I am helplessly 
drunk. Of that there is no doubt, but now I am 
asleep again, and there’s a tiptoeing behind my 
chair. A hidden serf stands there with his axe. 
Even now he’s lifting it. The next instant I shall 


148 THE CHARLES MEN 


feel it as a lightning-flash through my head—and 
then all’s over. Why won’t the chair stand still? 
I can’t hold myself on, if you jump. Whoa, there, 
Whiteface! I’d have you know there’s nothing in 
the world that can scare me. But to hold myself on, 
sitting backward on the loins of one of the king’s 
galloping chargers—that I can’t... . Bang! Look 
there! Now I’m lying there in the middle of the 
stone pavement. ... Fie! What are you laughing 
for? And then the vault in the cellar.... Why 
did you say just now that there was one... one 

. one two, one two, one two, lads in blue, two 
three, in grief and glee, three four, their land adore, 
four five, and boldly strive, five six, for Carolus 
Rex.” 

Finally I raised myself on my aching elbow and 
sang the whole of Psalm Number Six from the first 
to the last verse, and that with such a powerful voice 
that it seemed to meas if everything evil must have 
shrunk away in terror. 

Many times have I treated myself to a booze, 
but never one that gave me worse agony. When | 
awoke in the morning, I sprang at once from the 
floor, where I was lying at full length on my back 
by the chair. I was still so sure of an ambush that 
I was wholly surprised when I found both the girls 
sleeping on a sheepskin under the table, on which 
a light was burning in the socket. Out in the kitchen 
I heard strange voices and came there upon an old 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 149 


one-eyed witch who was called Natalia, and ashaggy 
serf who was called Makar, and who to the smallest 
detail resembled the man of whom I had dreamed. 
They confessed that they had kept themselves hid- 
den in the attic, but had now crept out when they 
noted that we intended no harm. They related that 
in the neighboring village there had also been sev- 
eral families during the night, but that at the report 
of our coming these had straightway loaded their 
belongings on a wagon and driven off at a gallop. 

For the first time now I could honestly feel my- 
self free from all apprehension, and with joy I went 
back to the hall, bent over the girls, and kissed 
Katarina both vigorously and long. 

She woke up and laughed and turned over on 
her side to sleep further, but I kissed her yet again, 
and then she defended herself and jumped up, brisk 
and cheerful. 

“You are a fine girl, Katarina, and I don’t need 
to mistrust you any longer,” said I. “ Fetch me a 
little fresh water now and some salt.” 

While she came and went to set out my break- 
fast I often took her about her none too slender 
waist, and kissed her. At last she kissed me back, 
too, and leaned against the cloth-of-silver on my 
breast, and cried and laughed alternately. We went 
back and forth through the many rooms, but at a 
certain door she always checked herself, because 
back of it the ensign had been pleased to go to rest 


150 THE CHARLES MEN 


in one of the noble master’s own down beds. Finally 
we sat down in a yellow reclining-chair, and I took 
her on my knee and wound her thick plait about 
my wrist. It was no falsehood either when I whis- 
pered into her ear that my hardened soldier’s heart 
had seldom beaten more warmly. 

I think with regret of the happy days that fol- 
lowed, and rather than recall them hour by hour, 
I leave it to you, especially to the young ones, to 
make use of your imaginations. Still, I always set 
Makar every evening as a guard before the house 
and never left off my broadsword. Sometimes Kata- 
rina in play would pull it from me, hold it out with 
both hands on the hilt, and go tramping through 
the rooms, while the autumn rain beat on the win- 
dow-panes. The loosely suspended tapestries were 
set in motion by the draught she made, so that the 
pictures seemed to breathe and bow. There was an 
echo every time when, with her black hat pulled 
down likean old-fashioned morion, she shouted her 
“ Forward!” Then I built barricades of tables and 
gilded leather chairs, until in the midst of the assault 
I leaped forth and overpowered both the amazon 
and her weapon. I had no longer any thought of my 
comrades, who meanwhile were perhaps hungering 
and bleeding, and my only wish was always to stay 
where I now found myself. 

Katarina always smelt of lavender. We had 
barred off a corner room for our share of the house, 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 151 


and thither she carried her big chest, which was 
entirely plastered over with blue-checkered paper. 
This contained her clothes and other belongings, 
and it never was opened without filling the room 
with lavender scent. It was her favorite diversion to 
lie on her knees in front of the chest, pull out all 
her garments with a multitude of small boxes and 
receptacles, and then pack them in again with the 
greatest care. When I found that too tedious, or the 
room sometimes grew too cold, I persuaded her to 
go out with me to the great hall, where we sat down 
by the stove. Then I tried to fasten her attention 
by telling the life history of my long broadsword, 
which I did not shorten by a word. I knew for sure 
that it had thedeath of eleven men on its conscience, 
and on my arm I could show scars both of bullet- 
grazes and cuts. But she did not ask much about 
them. If I told the saga of Prince Gideon of Maxi- 
brander, she grew impatient. “That is something 
that never happened,” she said, and began eagerly 
to sew together green and red scallops of cloth on 
two fur boots, which were clearly intended to be- 
come a masterpiece of their kind. 

The Herr Ensign lived in a continual booze 
and showed for the women the most open disdain. 
Katarina found this, too, very fortunate, she con- 
fessed, because it was so hard for a person in her 
class to reprove so high a gentleman, if he became 
attentive. One morning, in the midst of this, Herr 


152 THE CHARLES MEN 


Ensign called to mind the locked vault down in 
the cellar, which we had both forgotten. He went 
straightway there, and Katarina grew so beside her- 
self with alarm that she could not conceal it. Press- 
ing both my hands, she begged and prayed me to 
hold him back, and so completely was I then the 
prisoner of my heart that, although all my previous 
doubts awoke to life again, I let myself be forced 
to seek help for her. 

We went downafter Herr Ensign into the lighted 
cellar, where he was already absorbed in breaking 
open a locked wooden door. 

“Tet that alone!”’ I commanded him, and heas- 
sented, but kept on, nevertheless, with his immov- 
able stubbornness, breaking and prying. 

Then I excused myself before my wailing fol- 
lowers with the plea that a common soldier such as 
I could not command an officer—and at that mo- 
ment the door gave way. 

Within the vault a lamp burned under a gilded 
Russian Madonna, and beside a table with various 
sorts of food stood a made-up bed. Between the bed 
and the wall moved something round and dark, 
which, when we went nearer, showed itself to be the 
bent back of an old man. When the old man saw 
himself unearthed, hecrept forward, embraced Herr 
Ensign’s knees, and begged and conjured him to 
give pardon. He admitted that he was the mas- 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 153 


ter of the house and that he had concealed himself 
after he had sent away his family, but promised to 
be our most humble servant if we had pity on his 
life. 

“Be easy!’’ answered I, and helped the totter- 
ing old fellow up from the ground. “ But then you 
shall be our drummer when we go to table.” 

When we ate that evening in the great hall, Herr 
Ensign as usual had the splendid chair, and beside 
him sat I and Katarina. Ata table a little to the left 
stood the white-bearded and trembling master of 
the house with a brass mortar, and Makar with two 
pot-lids. They made their cooking utensils thunder 
in time to the melancholy folk-songs which ugly old 
Natalia sang, as she sat between the two on the edge 
of the table. 

I don’t know why, but her wailing voice gradu- 
ally robbed me of all my brisk gayety, and I began 
to think of my thousands upon thousands of absent 
comrades. I had between my vest and shirt a whole 
packet of letters which anxious relatives had written 
to their dear ones in the field, and which they had 
begged me to deliver to them, if I ever should get 
on to the king’s camp. I drew the letters from my 
bosom. They were not secret, for I had received 
many of them unsealed on my last evening at Riga. 
I pushed the candlestick nearer, eyed’ by chance a 
letter written in uncertain style, and read: 


154 THE CHARLES MEN 
Give this into the hands of John. 


My dere son: — 


Receive thy father’s blessing, though separated 
from him by both land and watter, and right nere 
the heathenish parts of the urth, where crocodiles, 
scorpions and other harmful crawling things strike 
{eres ac 


I drew a wry face, mayhap, but I felt my sacred 
responsibility, and my mind grew all the heavier. 
I noticed that Katarina pressed my foot more en- 
ergetically than usual, but I pressed back and 
thought that it was only a love token. When at 
last I had laid the letters together, I discovered that 
she sat quite pale, and could not take any wine or 
food. I bent a little to one side, so that she might 
be able to whisper, but the old gentleman at the 
table stared at her unexpectedly, while he the more 
eagerly let his blows ring on the brass mortar, which 
he held out like a bell. 

I remained in doubt and did not know rightly 
what trick I should invent. Then I trumped up the 
excuse that I was freezing. I went into the sleeping- 
room and, after pretending to search in the dark 
awhile, called, “ Katarina, my girl, where have you 
put the sheépskin coat?”’ 

When she came in, she rushed straight up to me 
and threw herself on my neck with stifled sobbing. 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 155 


“You didn’t hear,” she whispered, “that Makar 
just now in the midst of the noise told the master 
that he had got together more than sixty of the 
serfs, and that, as soon as he gives them a signal 
by breaking the window in the great hall, they are 
coming in to cut down both of you.” 

I remained fairly cool and sought to console her, 
but, choked with weeping, she told how she herself 
at the beginning was with the rest in wanting to 
entice us into a trap, but that she now no longer 
believed she could live on a day without me. 

I pressed her to me hard and kissed her burning 
mouth and throbbing temples, and yet in that mo- 
ment a strange repose fell upon my soul. My ac- 
quaintance with her became all at once nearly as 
something in the past. I have since, in my gray 
years, regretted this bitterly and wondered at my- 
self, who at that especial moment had so little to 
give her. Reading the letter, the sudden danger 
... 1 don’t know fully which was most to blame. 
To be sure, it depended on both. 

“If I could take you along,” I stammered. 

She shook her head, as I could very clearly per- 
ceive in the half-light from the open door, and drew 
me instead to the window, where she begged me to 
steal off. Then I lashed myself into a sort of pre- 
tended anger, threw her from me over the polished 
floor, and cried with raised voice, “ For whom do 
you take me, lass?”’ 


156 THE CHARLES MEN 


With that I drew my broadsword and went out 
into the great hall, and when Herr Ensign got 
sight of me so, he rose from the table directly and 
also drew. 

Then the master raised the mortar to throw it at 
the misty window-pane, but we stood right in front 
of him with our weapons, and his shaking knees 
became all the more bowed. He grew shorter and 
shorter, and the pestle rang between his fingers. 
Natalia crossed herself in silence, and Makar, who 
saw his master ready to sink, supported him from 
behind under the elbows and let the pot-lids fall 
clattering to the floor. Every now and then he tried 
to snatch the pestle to throw it at the window- 
pane, but then the old man shut his hand around 
the shaft without daring to let it go. 

So we stood a long while facing one another, and 
we heard the kettle purr in the kitchen. 

But soon we heard also the tap of steps, for the 
serfs had spied through the window from without 
and seen all. The kitchen door was filled with dirt- 
gray sheepskin coats, on which a bright button 
glinted here and there. Then a shot rang out and 
blew the smoke over the shaggy hides. 

Now I wholly forgot our ensign game and shoved 
Long Janaside so as to go at them for lifeand death, 
but just at this moment, even better than at any 
other time, was I to learn whom I had for a com- 
rade. He stood still, obstinate as ever, seized me 


FIFTY, YEARS LATER 157 


around both arms and swung me aside with the irre- 
* sistible strength which his thin limbs gathered, I 
don’t know from where. 

“Ensign,” said he, “if you have made yourself 
a private and me the ensign, then you ought also 
to know our custom in war that an officer goes first 
into the firing.” 

Like a thunderbolt he burst in among the sheep- 
skin coats, and with his great flat hands held the 
blade that with one blow cut the lintel over his neck 
and with another peeled off the poor wretches’ hides 
and clothes. I heard yet another shot, and saw axes 
and hay-forks. His right arm twitched and grew 
bloody, and he could now only wield his weapon 
with the other, but I was at his side, hewing and 
thrusting. 

We were forced into one corner of the kitchen, 
and my inflated fool’s mantle of cloth-of-silver 
was cut to pieces so that the black stubs of whale- 
bone stuck out through the holes. Blackened with 
smoke so that he was unrecognizable, Long Jan 
tottered against my shoulder, and I took him by 
his uninjured hand and squeezed it in brotherly 
fashion with the words, “ Now I’ve learned what you 
amount to, Jan, and if we get out of this, we shall 
nevermore leave each other.” 

He answered nothing. One eye was shut, the 
other was staring wide, and he fell heavily in front 
of me to the floor. 


158 THE CHARLES MEN 


That was the last time I saw Long Jan, at whom 
I had so often laughed, and who had so often vexed 
me, but to whom I was now glad to offer the respect- 
ful grasp of a friend and an equal. 

For a moment I sought involuntarily to defend 
his body, but gradually I perceived it would be 
useless in that last forlorn hope. A moment later 
I was groping around once more amid underbrush 
and mud, wet through with rain, and with a wound 
over one dexter finger. 

I had, however, the luck to stumble upon a detail 
of twenty other wandering Swedes, and climbed up 
in a fir-tree to get with my eye to the kernel of the 
far-stretching glow that tinted the lowering sky 
above the wood. 

““What do you see?” asked my comrades. 

“T see pitch-black darkness. But if I shut my 
eyes, I see still more. Then I see before me a hos- 
tile camp. Below me I see the soggy turf, which 
sucks hard about our feet, greedy for the honor of 
being the death-bed of a few poor wretches. Be- 
hind me I see the miles on miles of wilderness, 
where our brothers’ corpses grow yellow beneath 
the fallen October leaves, where no hens cluck 
before the burnt homesteads, and no horse can find 
any food except the bark of twigs. But still farther 
away lies the sea, and beyond that I see a long 
road with tumble-down fences that climbs up to 
an old red-painted homestead. Within there, the 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 159 


turnips have just been taken from the table, and 
while the venerable old man opens his leather Bible, 
where a black cock’s feather lies as marker to the 
first chapter of the Book of Revelation, he falls 
into musing and wonders if we perchance have by 
now got ahead with reinforcements to the king’s 
camp, and if his dear boy may now be reading by 
the fire his half illegible letter.” 

Certainly I did n’t say all this at that time, but 
I know that I thought it. Katarina was already an 
almost silenced memory. 

““What do you see now?” asked my comrades, 
“You have climbed higher up.” 

Across the trees I saw beacons or camp-fires hang- 
ing within the yellow mist like lumps of melted 
iron, and asI strained my eyes, the row of gray tent- 
roofs in the light of the pitch beacons reminded me 
of a misty coast-line. 

“That glow,” I whispered to my comrades, “is 
a great apple with many kernels, and we need to 
have our swords ready. But wait! that was not Rus- 
sian. Did n’t you hear the two outposts who called 
to each other? As sure as I live was not that our 
own beloved mother-speech? If I didn’t seven 
times hear ‘devil,’ may the devil take me!”’ 

How did I come down from the fir? That I 
hardly remember. On all sides I shook outstretched 
hands and moved between blue and yellow coats 
from embrace to embrace. How many longed-for 


160 THE CHARLES MEN 


embraces did I not have to give, how many ad- 
ventures to describe! I went about ever further into 
the camp, sometimes carried, sometimes dragged, 
sometimes met with ringing laughter, as they got 
sight of my ragged fool’s-mantle, round which the 
projecting whalebones shook with every motion. 
Within me was a roar of joy. 

“I have a letter to Captain Bagge,” I shouted. 

“Shotilong-agos” 

“‘T have also a letter to Cederstjerne, Lieuten- 
ant.” 

Shot?’ 

I stumbled over a dead horse, which with its 
stiffened grin was almost scorched by a smoulder- 
ing fire of logs. The rain had quenched the flames, 
and in the illuminated smoke behind the embers I 
saw a Seated circle of grim-looking officers. Among 
them lay on the ground at full length a man with 
a fur hood drawn down and a cape collar over his 
face. I wanted to step over him and waved my 
packet of letters, but a hand seized me by the shoul- 
der and I was harshly stopped short by the words, 
‘Are you out of your wits? Don’t you see it is His 
Majesty?” 

Then I struck my heels together as I raised the 
hand with the packet to my head, and the tears that 
burst forth ran down my cheeks. 


Captain Hook arose and finished his story as he 


FIFTY YEARS LATER 161 


bade good-night, but when he went out into the 
entry, the others heard that he remained standing 
on the winding stair. 

Then one of the servant-girls drew her holiday 
jacket about her and loosened the last stump of one 
branch candle from the round table. As she carried 
it, she held one hand underneath, so that no grease 
should fall on the straw. Thereupon she went out 
carefully to light the captain, for they all knew that 
he, a Charles man, was so afraid of the dark that he 
never dared go alone across the attic. 


The Fortified House 
URPRISED by the winter cold, the Swedes in 


crowded confusion had taken up their quarters 
behind the walls of Hadjash. Soon there was not a 
house to be found that was not filled with the frost- 
bitten and the dying. Cries of distress were heard 
out in the street, and here and there beside the steps 
lay amputated fingers, feet, and legs. Vehicles stood 
fastened to each other, so tightly packed from the 
city gate to the market-place that the chilly-pale 
soldiers, whostreamed in fromall sides, had to crawl 
between the wheels and runners. Buckled in their 
harness and turned away from the wind, the horses, 
their loins white with frost, had already stood many 
days without food. No one took care of them, and 
several of the drivers sat frozen to death with hands 
stuck into their sleeves. Some wagons were like ob- 
long boxes or coffins, where from the chink of the 
flat lid stared out mournful faces, which read in a 
prayer-book or gazed longingly with feverish delir- 
ium at the sheltering houses. A thousand unfortu- 
nates, in muffled tones or silently, cried to God for 
mercy. Under thesheltered side of the city wall dead 
soldiers stood in lines, many with red Cossack coats 
buttoned over their ragged Swedish uniforms and 
with sheepskins around their naked feet. Wood- 
doves and sparrows, which were so stiff with frost 


that they could be caught with the hand, had fallen 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 163 


on the hats and shoulders of the standing corpses, 
and fluttered their wings when the chaplains went 
by to give a Last Communion in brandy. 

Up at the market-place among burnt areas stood 
an unusually large house, from which could be heard 
loud voices. A soldier delivered a fagot to an en- 
sign who stood in the doorway, and when the soldier 
went back into thestreet, he shrugged his shoulders 
and said to whomsoever cared to hear him: “It’s 
only the gentlemen quarreling in the chancellery.” 

The ensign at the door had lately arrived with 
Lewenhaupt’s forces. He carried the fagot into the 
room,and threwit down bythe fireplace. The voices 
within ceased immediately, but as soon as he had 
closed the door, they began with renewed heat. 

It was His Excellency Piper who stood in the 
middle of the floor, his countenance wrinkled and 
furrowed, with glowing cheeks and trembling nos- 
trils. 

“‘T say that the whole affair is madness,” he burst 
out, “ madness, madness!”’ 

Hermelin, with his pointed nose, was constantly 
twitching his eyes and his hands, while he sprang 
back and forthin the room likea tame rat; but Field 
Marshal Rehnskiold, who, with his handsome, 
stately figure, was standing by the fireplace, only 
whistled and hummed. If he had not whistled and 
hummed, the quarrel would have been finished by 
this time, because for once they were all fully 


164 THE CHARLES MEN 


agreed; but the fact that he whistled and hummed 
instead of being silent or at least speaking, that 
could beenduredno longer. Lewenhaupt at the win- 
dow took snuff and snapped shut his snuff-box. His 
pepper-brown eyes protruded from his head, and 
it looked as if his comical peruke became ever big- 
ger and bigger. If Rehnskidld had not continued 
to whistle and hum, he would have controlled him- 
self to-day as yesterday and on all other occasions, 
but now wrath rose to his brow. 

He shut his snuff-box for the last time, and 
mumbled between his teeth, “1 do not ask that His 
Majesty should understand statesmanship. But can 
he lead troops? Does he show real insight at a 
single encounter or attack? Trained and proved 
old warriors, who never can be replaced, he offers 
daily for an empty bravado. If our men are to 
storm a wall, it is considered superfluous that they 
bind themselves protecting fagots or shields, and 
therefore they are wretchedly massacred. To speak 
freely, my worthy sirs, I can forgive an Uppsala 
student many a boyish freak, but I demand other- 
wise of a general in the field. Truly it avails not to 
carry on a campaign under the command of such 
a master.” 

“Furthermore,” continued Piper, “His Majesty 
does not at present incommode you, general, with 
any particularly hard command. At the beginning, 
before one man had succeeded in distinguishing 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 165 


himself more than another, it went better; but now 
His Majesty goes around mediating and reconciling 
with a foolish smile so that one could go crazy.” 

He raised his arms in the air with a wrath which 
had lost all sense and bounds, notwithstanding he 
was altogether at one with Lewenhaupt. While he 
was still speaking, he turned about and betook him- 
self impetuously to the inner apartments. The door 
‘slammed with such a clatter that Rehnskidld found 
himself yet more called upon to whistle and hum. 
If he only had chosen to say something! But no, 
he did not. Gyllenkrook, who sat at the table and 
examined departure-checks, was blazing in the face, 
and a little withered-looking officer at his side 
whispered venomously into his ear: “A pair of 
diamond earrings given to Piper’s countess might 
perhaps even yet help Lewenhaupt to new appoint- 
ments.” 

If Rehnskiold had now ceased to whistle and 
hum, Lewenhaupt would still have been able to 
control himself, to take up the roll of papers he 
carried under his coat and sit down at a corner of 
the table; but instead, the venerable and at other 
times taciturn man grew worse and worse. He 
turned about undecidedly and went toward the 
entrance door, but there he suddenly stood still, 
drew himself up, and smacked his heels together as 
if he had been a mere private. Now Rehnskiold 
became quiet. The door opened. An icy gust of 


166 THE CHARLES MEN 


wind rushed into the room, and the ensign an- 
nounced with as loud and long-drawn a voice as 
a sentry who calls his comrades to arms: “ Hi-s 
Majesty!” 

The king was no longer the dazzled and won- 
dering half-grown youth of aforetime. Only the 
boyish figure with the narrow shoulders was the 
same. His coat was sooty and dirty. The wrinkle 
around the short, protruding upper lip had become 
deeper and rather morose. On the nose and one 
cheek he had frost-bite, and his eyelids were red- 
edged and swollen with protracted cold, but around 
the formerly bald vertex of his head the combed- 
back hair stood up like a pointed crown. 

He held a fur cap in both hands, and tried to 
conceal his embarrassment and diffidence behind 
a stiff and cold ceremoniousness, while bowing and 
smiling to each and all of those present. 

They bowed again and again still more deeply, 
and when he had advanced to the middle of the 
floor, he stood still and bowed awkwardly toward 
the sides, though with somewhat more haste, being 
apparently wholly occupied with what he was about 
to say. Thereupon he remained a long while stand- 
ing quite silent. 

Then he went forward to Rehnskiold and, with 
a brief inclination, took him by one of his coat but- 
tons. 

“‘T would beg,” he said, “that Your Excellency 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 167 


provide me with two or three men of the common 
soldiers as escort for a little excursion. I havealready 
two dragoons with me.” 

“But, Your Majesty! the country is overrun with 
Cossacks. To ride in here to the city from Your 
Majesty’s quarters with so small an escort was al- 
ready a feat of daring.” 

“Oh, nonsense, nonsense! Your Excellency will 
do as I have said. Some one of the generals pres- 
ent, who is at leisure, may also mount and take one 
of his men.” 

Lewenhaupt bowed. 

The king regarded him a trifle irresolutely with- 
out answering, and remained standing after Rehn- 
skidld hastened out. None of the others in the circle 
considered it necessary to break the silence or to 
move. 

Only after a very long pause did the king bow 
again to every one separately, and go out into the 
open air. 

“Well anquired Lewenhaupt and clapped the 
ensign on the shoulder with a return of his nat- 
ural kindliness. “The ensign shall go along! This 
is the first time the ensign has stood eye to eye with 
His Majesty.” 

“] had never expected he would be like that.” 

“ Heis always like that. He is too kingly to com- 
mand.” 

They followed after the king, who clambered over 


168 THE CHARLES MEN 


wagons and fallen animals. His motions were agile, 
never abrupt, but measured and quite slow, so that 
he never for a moment lost his dignity. When he had 
finally made his way forward through the throng to 
the city gate, he mounted to the saddle with his 
attendants, who were now seven men, 

The horses stumbled on the icy street, and some 
fell, but Lewenhaupt’s remonstrances only induced 
the king to use his spurs yet more heartlessly. The 
lackey Hultman had read aloud to him all night or 
had related sagas,and had at length coaxed him into 
laughing at the prophecy that, had he not been ex- 
alted by God to be a king, he would for his whole 
life have become an unsociable floor-pacer, who de- 
vised much more wonderful verses than those of the 
late Messenius of Disa on Bollhus, but especially 
the mightiest battle stories. He tried to think of 
Rolf Gotriksson, who ever rode foremost of all his 
men, but to-day it did not please him to bound his 
thoughts within the play-room of a saga. The rest- 
lessness, which during the last few days had struck 
its claws into his mind, would not let go of its royal 
prey. At the chancellery he had just seen the heated 
faces. Ever since the pranks of his boyhood he had 
been wrapt in his own imaginary world of the past. 
He had sat deaf to the piercing cries of distress along 
the way, while he became distrustful of each and all 
who exhibited a more sensitive hearing. To-day, as 
at other times, he hardly noted that they offered 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 169 


him the best-rested horse and the freshest cake of 
bread, that in the morning they laid a purse with 
five hundred ducats in his pocket, that the horse- 
men at the first mé/ée would form a ring about him 
and offer themselves to that death which he had 
challenged. On the other hand, he noticed that the 
soldiers saluted him with gloomy silence, and mis- 
fortunes had made him suspicious even of those 
nearest to him. The most cautious opposition, the 
most concealed disapproval, he made a note of with- 
out betraying himself,and every word remained and 
gnawed at his soul. Every hour it seemed to him 
that he lost an officer on whom he had formerly 
relied, and his heart became all the colder. His 
thwarted ambition chafed and bled under the weight 
of failure, and he breathed more lightly the farther 
behind him he left his headquarters. 

Suddenly Lewenhaupt came to a stand, debating 
within himself how to exercise an influence upon 
the king. 

“My heroic Ajax!” said he, and patted his steam- 
ing horse, “ you are indeed an old manger-biter, but 
I have no right to founder you for no good cause, 
and I myself am beginning to get on in years as you 
are. But in Jesus’ name, lads, let him who can follow 
the king!”’ 

When he saw the ensign’s anxious sidelong look 
toward the king, he spoke with lowered voice: 
“Be faithful, boy! His Majesty does not roar 


170 THE CHARLES MEN 


out as we others do. He is too kingly to chide or 
bicker.” 

The king feigned to notice nothing. More and 
more wildly over ice and snow he kept up the silent 
horse-race without goal or purpose. He had now 
only four attendants. After another hour one of the 
remaining horses fell with a broken fore-leg, and the 
rider out of pity shot a bullet through its ear, after 
which he himself, alone and on foot, went to meet 
an uncertain fate in the cold. 

At last the ensign was the only man who was able 
to follow the king, and they had now come among 
bushes and saplings, where they could proceed but 
at a foot-pace. On the hill above them rose a gray 
and sooty house with narrow grated windows, the 
courtyard being surrounded by a wall. 

At this moment there was a shot. 

“‘ How was that?” inquired the king, and looked 
around. 

“The pellet piped nastily when it went by my 
ear, but it only bit the corner of my hat,” answered 
the ensign, without the least experience of how he 
ought to conduct himself before the king. He had 
a slight Smaland accent, and laughed contentedly 
with his whole blond countenance. 

Enchanted by the good fortune of being man by 
man with him whom he regarded as above all other 
living human beings, he continued: ‘‘Shall we then 
go up there and take them by the beard?” 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 171 


‘The answer pleased the king in the highest de- 
gree, and with a leap he stood on the ground. 

“We'll tie our steeds hereinthe bushes,” he said, 
exhilarated and with bright color on his cheek. 
“Afterwards let us go up and run them all through 
as easily as whistling.” 

They left the panting horses and, bending for- 
ward, climbed up the hill among the bushes. Over 
the wall looked down several Cossack heads with 
hanging hair, yellow and grinning as those of be- 
headed criminals. 

“Took!” whispered the king, and smote his 
hands together. ‘‘ They ’re trying to pull shut the 
rotten gate, the fox-tails!” 

His glance, but recently so expressionless, be- 
came now flickering and anon open and shining. 
He drew his broadsword and raised it with both 
hands above his head. Like a young man’s god 
he stormed in through the half-open door. The 
ensign, who cut and thrust by his side, was often 
close to being struck from behind by his weapon. 
A musket-shot blackened the king’s right temple. 
Four men were cut down in the gateway, and the 
fifth of the band fled with a fire-shovel into the 
courtyard, pursued by the king. 

Then the king wiped off the blood from his 
sword on the snow, while he laid two ducats in the 
Cossack’s shovel and burst out with rising spirits, 
“It is no pleasure to fight with these wretches 


172 THE CHARLES MEN 


who never strike back and only run. Come back 
when you have bought yourself a decent sword.” 

The Cossack, who understood nothing, stared 
at the gold-pieces, sneaked along the wall to the 
gate, and fled. Ever farther and farther away on 
the plain he called his roving comrades with a dis- 
mal and lamenting ‘“Oohaho! Oohaho!” 

The king hummed to himself as if chaffing with 
an unseen enemy: “ Little Cossack man, little Cos- 
sack man, go gather up your rascals!”’ 

The walls around the courtyard were moulder- 
ing and black. From the wilderness sounded an 
endlessly prolonged minor tone as from an aeolian 
harp, and the king inquisitively shouldered in the 
door of the dwelling-house. This consisted of a 
single large and half-dark room, and before the fire- 
place lay a heap of blood-stained clothing, which 
plunderers of corpses had taken from fallen Swedes. 
The door was thrown shut again by the cross- 
draught, and the king went to the stable-buildings 
at the side. There was no door there, and a sound 
was now heard the more plainly. Within in the dark- 
ness lay a starved white horse bound toan iron ring 
in the wall. 

A lifted broadsword would not have checked the 
king, but the uncertain dusk caused the man of 
imagination to stand on the threshold, fearful of 
the dark. Yet he gave no sign of this, but beckoned 
the ensign. They stepped in down a steep stairway 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 173 


to a cellar. Here there was a well, and at the arm 
of the creaking windlass that brought up the 
water, a deaf Cossack, wholly unaware of danger, 
was driving around with whip and reins a human 
figure in the uniform of a Swedish officer. 

When they had loosed the rope and had bound 
the Cossack in the place of the prisoner, they rec- 
ognized the Holsteiner, Feuerhausen, who had 
served as major in a regiment of dragoon recruits, 
but had been cut off by the Cossacks and harnessed 
as a draught animal for hoisting water. 

He fell on his knees, and stammered in broken 
Swedish: ““Your Majesty! I gan’t pelief my eyes 
ese. iy gratitude —*\t.: 

Theking cheerily interrupted his talk, and turned 
to the ensign: “‘ Bring up the two horses to the 
stable! Three men cannot ride comfortably on two 
horses, and therefore we shall stay here till a few 
Cossacks come by, from whom we can take a new 
horse. Do you, sir, stand guard at the gate.” 

After that the king went back to the dwelling- 
house, and shut the door after him. The horses 
which, desperate with hunger, had been greedily 
gnawing the bark from the bushes, were meanwhile 
led up to the stable,and the ensign mounted guard. 

Slowly the hours went by. When it began to 
draw towards dusk, the storm increased in bitter- 
ness, and in the light of sunset the snow whirled 
over the desolate snow-plain. Deathly yellow Cos- 


174 THE CHARLES MEN 


sack facesraised themselves spying above the bushes, 
and borne in the wind sounded the roving sire 
derers’ “Oohaho! Oohaho! Oohaho!”’ 

Then Feuerhausen stepped out of the stable, 
where he had sat between the horses so as not to 
get frost in his wounds from the ropes with which 
he had been bound. He went forward to the barred 
doors of the dwelling-house. 

“Your Majesty!” he stammered, “the Cossacks 
are gathering more and more, and darkness is com- 
ing soon. I and theensign can both sit on one horse. 
If we delay here, this night will be Your Mightiest 
Majesty’ s last, which Gott in His secret dispensa- 
tion forbit!” 

The king answered from within, “ i: must be as 
we said. Three men do not ride comfortably on two 
horses.” 

The Holsteiner shook his head and went down 
to the ensign. 

‘Such is His Majesty, you damt Swedes. From 
the stable I heard him walk and walk back and for- 
vart. Sickness and conscience-torture will come. 
Like a pater familiae the Muscovite czar stands 
among his subjects. A confectioner he sets up as his 
friend, and a simple servant-girl he raises to his glo- 
rious imperial throne. Detestable are his gestures 
when he gets drunk, and he treats women 4 /a fran- 
¢ois; but his first and last wort always runs, ‘For 
Russia’s goot!’ King Carolus leafs his lants as 


CHE BORTIFIED HOUSE 175 


smoking ash-heaps, and does not possess a single 
frient, not efen among his nearest. King Carolus 1s 
more lonely than the meanest wagon-drifer. He has 
not once a comrade’s knee to weep on. Among 
nobles and fine ladies and perukes he comes like 
a spectre out of a thousant-year mausoleum — and 
spectres mostly go about witout company. Is he 
a man of state? Oh, haf mercy! No sense for the 
public. Is he a general ? Good-by ! No sense for the 
big masses. Only to make bridges and set up gabi- 
ons, clap his hants at captured flags and a couple 
of kettledrums. No sense for state and army, only 
for men.” 

“That may be also a sense,” replied the en- 
sign. 

He walked vigorously back and forward, for his 
fingers were already so stiff with cold that he 
scarcely could hold his drawn blade. 

The Holsteiner shifted the ragged coat-collar 
around his cheeks and went on with muffled voice 
and eager gestures : ‘ King Carolus laughs with de- 
light when the bridge breaks, and men and beasts 
are miserably drownt. No heart in his breast. To 
the deuce wit him! King Carolus is such a little 
Swedish half-genius as wanders out inthe worlt and 
beats the drum and parades and makes a fiasco, and 
the parterre whistles, Whee!”’ 

“And that is why the Swedes go to death for 
him,” answered the ensign; “that is just why.” 


176 THE CHARLES MEN 


“Not angry, my dearest fellow! Your teeth shone 
so in a laugh when we first met.” 

“‘T like to hear the Herr Major talk, but I’m 
freezing. Will not the major go up and listen at the 
king’s door?” 

The Holsteiner went up to the door and listened. 
When he came back, he said, “‘ He only walks and 
walks, and sighs heavily like a man in anguish of 
soul. So it always is now, they say. His Majesty 
nefer sleeps any more at night. The comedy-actor 
knows he is not up to his part, and of all life’s 
torments wounded ambition becomes the bitter- 
est.” 

“Then it should also be the last for us to jest at. 
Dare I beg the major to rub my right hand with 
snow; it is getting numb.” 

The Holsteiner did as he desired, and turned 
back to the king’s door. He struck his forehead with 
both hands. His gray-sprinkled, bushy moustaches 
stood straight out, and he mumbled, “Gott, Gott! 
Soon it will be too dark to retreat.” 

The ensign called, “Good sir, I should like to ask 
if you would rub my face with snow. My cheeks are 
freezing stiff. Of the pain in my foot I will not speak. 
Ans can thbear it: 

The Holsteiner filled his hands with snow. “Let 
me stand guard,” he said, ‘‘only for an hour.” 

“No, no. The king has commanded that I stay 


here at the entrance.” 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 177 


“Och, the king! I know him. I will make him 
cheerful, talk philosophy, tell of gallant exploits. 
He is always amused to hear of a lover who climbs 
adventurously through a window. He often looks 
at the beautiful side of womankint. That appeals 
to his imagination, but not to his flesh, for he is 
witout feeling. Ant he is bashful. If the fair one 
ever wishes to tread him under her silken shoe, she 
must herself attack, but pretent to flee, and all the 
others must strive against the /aison. The most 
mighty lady, his grandmother, spoiled everything 
with her shriek of ‘ Marriage, marriage!’ King Caro- 
lus is from top to toe like the Swedish queen Chris- 
tina, though he is genuinely masculine. The two 
should have married each other on the same throne. 
That would haf been a fine little pair. Oh, pfui, pfui! 
you Swedes. If a man gallops his horses and lets 
people and kingdom be massacred, he 1s still pure- 
hearted and supreme among all, if only his bloot 1s 
too slow for amours. Oh, excuse me! I know pure- 
hearted heroes who were faithfully in love with two, 
three different maidens or wives in one and the same 
week.” 

“Yes, we are so, we are so. But for Christ’s pity 
you must rub my hand again. And excuse my moan- 
ing and groaning!” 

Just inside the gate, which could not be shut, 
lay the fallen Cossacks, white as marble with the 
hoar frost. The yellow sky became gray, and ever 


178 THE CHARLES MEN 


nearer and more manifold in the twilight sounded 
the wailing cries, “Oohaho! Oohaho! Oohaho!” 

Now the king opened his door and came down 
across the court. 

The pains in his head, from which he had begun 
to suffer, had been increased by his ride in the wind 
and made his glance heavy. His countenance bore 
traces of lonely soul-strife, but as he drew near, his 
mouth resumed its usual embarrassed smile. His 
temple was still blackened after the musket-shot. 

“It’s freshening up,” he said,and producing from 
his coat a loaf of bread, he broke it in three, so that 
every one had as large a piece as he did. After that, 
he lifted off his riding-cape, and fastened it himself 
about the shoulders of the sentinel ensign. 

Abashed over his own conduct, he then took 
the Holsteiner forcibly by the arm and led him up 
through the courtyard, while they chewed at their 
hard bread. 

Now, if ever, thought the Holsteiner, is the time 
to win the king’s attention with a clever turn of 
speech, and afterwards talk sense with him. 

“The accommodation might be worse,” he began, 
at the same time biting and chewing. ‘Ah, good old 
days! That reminds me of a gallant adventure out- 
side of Dresden.”’ 

The king kept on holding him by the arm, and 
the Holsteiner lowered his voice. The story was 
lively and salacious, and the king grew inquisitive. 


THE FORTIFIED. HOUSE 179 


The coarsest allusionsalways lured out his set smile. 
He listened with a despairing and half-absent man’s 
need of momentary diversion. 

Only when the Holsteiner with cunning deftness 
began to shift the conversation over to some words 
about their immediate danger did the king again 
become serious. 

“« Bagatelle, bagatelle!” he replied. “It is nothing 
at all worth mentioning, except that we must behave 
ourselves well and sustain our reputation to the last 
man. If the rascals come on, we will all three place 
ourselves at the gate and pink them with our 
swords.” 

The Holsteiner stroked his forehead and felt 
around. He began to talk about the stars that were 
just shining out. He set forth a theory for measur- 
ing their distance from the earth. The king now lis- 
tened tohim with a quite different sort of attention. 
He broke into the question keenly, resourcefully, 
and with an unwearied desire to think out new, 
surprising methods in his own way. One assertion 
gave a hand to another, and soon the conversation 
dwelt on the universe and the immortality of the 
soul, to return afresh to the stars. More and more 
of them flickered in the heavens, and the king de- 
scribed what he knew about the sun-dial. He stood 
up his broadsword with its scabbard in the snow and 
directed the point toward the Polestar, so that next 
morning they might be able to tell the time. 


180 THE CHARLES MEN 


“The heart of the universe,” he said, “must be 
either the earth or the star that stands over the land 
of the Swedes. No land must be of more account 
than the Swedish land.” 

Outside the wall the Cossacks were calling out, 
but as soon as the Holsteiner led the talk to their 
threatened attack, the king was laconic. 

“‘ At daybreak we shall betake ourselves back to 
Hadjash,” said he. ‘‘ Before then we can hardly se- 
cure a third horse, so that each of us can ride com- 
fortably in his own saddle.” 

After he had spoken in that strain, he went back 
into the dwelling-house. 

The Holsteiner came down with a vehement 
stride to the ensign, and pointing at the king’s door, 
he cried out, “ Forgif me, ensign. We Germans don’t 
mince words when a wount oozes after a rope, but 
I lay down my arms and gif you, sir, the victory, 
because I also could shed my bloot for the man. 
Do I lofe him! No one efer understands him that 
has not seen him. But, ensign, you cannot stay any 
longer out in the weather.” 

The ensign replied, ‘‘ No cape has warmed me 
more sweetly than the one I now wear, and I lay all 
my cares on Christ. But in God’s name, major, go 
back to the door and listen! The king might do 
himself some harm.” 

“His Majesty would not fall on his ow» sword, 
but longs for another’s.” 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 181 


““Now I hear his steps even down here. They 
are getting still more violent and restless. He is so 
lonely. When I saw him in Hadjash bowing and 
bowing among the generals, I could only think, 
How lonely he is!”’ 

“If the little Holsteiner slips away from here 
alife, he will always remember the steps we heard 
to-night and always call this refuge Fort Garten.” 

The ensign nodded his approval and answered, 
“Go to the stable, major, and seek rest and shelter 
awhile between the horses. And there through the 
walls you can better hear the king and watch over 
him.” 

Thereupon the ensign began to sing with reso- 
nant voice: 


O Father, to Thy loving grace. .. 


The Holsteiner went back across the court into 
the stable and, his voice quavering with cold, in- 
toned with the other: 

In every time and every place 


My poor weak soul would T commend. 
O Lord, receive it and defend. 


“Oohaho! Oohaho!”’ answered the Cossacks in the 
storm, and it was already night. 

The Holsteiner squeezed himself in between the 
two horses, and listened till weariness and sleep 
bowed his head. Only at dawn was he wakened by 
a clamor. He sprang out into the open air, and be- 


182 THE CHARLES MEN 


held the king already standing in the court, looking 
at the sword that had been set up as a sun-dial. 

By the gate the Cossacks had collected, but when 
they saw the motionless sentry, they shrank back in 
superstitious fear and thought of the rumors con- 
cerning the magic of the Swedish soldiers against 
blow and shot. 

When the Holsteiner had gotten forward to the 
ensign, he grasped him hard by the arm. 

“What now?” he asked. “ Brandy?” 

At the same instant he let go his grip. 

The ensign stood frozen to death with his back 
against the wall of the gate, his hands on his sword- 
hilt, and wrapped in the king’s cloak. 

“Since we are now only two,” the king remarked, 
drawing his weapon out of the snow, “we can at 
once betake ourselves each to his horse, as it was 
arranged.” 

The Holsteiner stared him right in the eyes with 
reawakened hate and remained standing, as if he 
had heard nothing. Finally, however, he led out the 
horses, but his hands trembled and clenched them- 
selves, so that he could hardly draw the saddle-girths. 

The Cossacks swung their sabres and pikes, but 
the sentry stood at his post. | 

Then the king sprang carelessly into the saddle, 
and set his horse to a gallop. His forehead was clear, 
his cheeks were rosy, and his broadsword glimmered 
like a sunbeam. 


THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 183 


The Holsteiner looked after him. His bitter ex- 
pression relaxed, and he murmured between his 
teeth, while he too mounted to the saddle and with 
hand lifted to his hat raced by the sentry: “It is 


only the joy of a hero in seeing a hero’s noble 
death.— Thanks, comrade!”’ 


A Clean White Shirt 


RIVATE Bencr Getinc had got a Cossack’s 

pike through his breast, and his comrades laid 
him on a heap of twigs in a copse, where Pastor 
Rabenius gave him the Holy Communion. This 
was on the icy ground before the walls of Veperik, 
and a whistling norther tore the dry leafage from 
the bushes. 

“The Lord be with thee!” whispered Rabenius 
softly and paternally. “Are you prepared now to 
. depart hence after a good day’s work?” 

Bengt Geting lay with his hands knotted, bleed- 
ing to death. The hard eyes stood wide open, and 
the obstinate and scraggy face was so tanned by sun 
and frost that the bluish pallor of death shone out 
only over his lips. 

“No,” he said. 

“That is the first time I have heard a word from 
your mouth, Bengt Geting.” 

The dying man knotted his hands all the harder, 
and chewed with his lips, which opened themselves 
for the words against his will. 

“For once,” he said slowly, “even the meanest 
and raggedest of soldiers may speak out.” 

He raised himself painfully on his elbow, and 
ejaculated such a piercing cry of anguish that Ra- 
benius did not know whether it came from torment 
of soul or of body. 


A CLEAN WHITE SHIRT 185 


He set down the chalice on the ground, and 
spread a handkerchief over it, so that the leaves 
which were tumbling about should not fall into the 
brandy. 

“And this,” he stammered, pressing his hands 
to his forehead, “this I, who ama servant of Christ, 
shall be constrained to witness, morning after morn- 
ing, evening after evening.” 

Soldiers crowded forward from all sides between 
the bushes to see and hear the fallen man, but their 
captain came in a wrathful mood with sword drawn. 

“Tie a cloth over the fellow’s mouth!” he 
shouted. ‘“‘ He has always been the most obstinate 
man in the battalion. I am no more inhuman than 
another, but I must do my duty, and I have a mass 
of new and untrained folk that have come with 
Lewenhaupt. These have got scared by his wail- 
ing, and refuse to go forward. Why don’t you obey? 
I command here.” 

Rabenius took a step forward. On his curled white 
peruke he had a whole garland of yellow leaves, 

“Captain,” he said, “‘ beside the dying the servant 
of God alone commands, but in glad humility he de- 
livers his authority to the dying man himself. For 
three years I have seen Bengt Geting march in the 
line, but never yet have I seen him speak with any 
one. Now on the threshold of God’s judgment-seat 
may no one further impose silence upon him.”’ 

“With whom should I have spoken?” asked the 


186 THE CHARLES MEN 


bleeding trooper bitterly. ““‘ My tongue is as if tied 
and lame. Weeks would go by without my saying 
a word. No one has ever asked me about anything. 
It was only the ear that had to be on guard so that 
I did not fail to obey. ‘Go,’ they have said, ‘go 
through marsh and snow.’ To that there was noth- 
ing to answer.” 

Rabenius knelt and softly took ‘his hands in his. 

‘But now you shall speak, Bengt Geting. Speak, 
speak, now that all are gathered to hear you. You 
are now the only one of us all who has the right to 
speak. Is there a wife or perhaps an aged mother 
at home to whom you want me to send amessage?” 

‘‘My mother starved me and sent me to the 
troops, and never since then has a woman had any- 
thing else to say to me than the same, ‘Get away, 
Bengt Geting, go, go! What do you want with us?’”’ 

“‘Flave you then anything to repent?” 

“‘T repent that as a child I did not jump into the 
mill-race, and that, when you stood before the regi- 
ment on Sunday and admonished us to go patiently 
on andon, | didn’t step forwardand strike you down 
with my musket.— But do you want to know what 
causes me dread? Have younever heard the wagon- 
drivers and outposts tell how in the moonlight they 
have seen their comrades that were shot limp in 
crowds after the army and hop about on their 
mangled legs and cry, ‘Greetings to mother !’— 
They call them the Black Battalion. It’s into the 


A CLEAN WHITE SHIRT 187 


Black Battalion that I’m to go now. But the worst 
is that I shall be buried in my ragged coat and my 
bloody shirt. That’s the thing I can’t get out of my 
mind. A plain trooper does n’t want to be taken 
homelike the dead General Liewen, but I’m think- 
ing of the fallen comrades at Dorfsniki, where the 
king had acoffin of acouple of boards and a clean 
white shirt given to each man. Why should they be 
treated so much better than I? Now in this year of 
misfortune a man is laid out as he falls. 1’m so deep- 
ly sunkin misery that the only thing in the world 
that I can be envious of is their clean white shirts.” 
“My poor friend,” answered Rabenius quietly, 
“in the Black Battalion —if you believe in it now 
—you will have great company. Gyldenstolpe and 
Sperling and Lieutenant-Colonel Morner already 
lie shot on the field. And do you recall the thou- 
sand others? Do you remember the friendly Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Wattrang, who came riding to our 
regiment and gave an apple to every soldier, and 
who now lies among the Royal Dragoons, and all 
our comrades under the meadow at Holofzin? And 
do you remember my predecessor, Nicholas Up- 
pendich,a mighty proclaimer of the Word, who fell 
at Kalisch in his priestly array? Grass has grown 
and snow fallen over his mould, and no one can 
point out with his foot the sod where he sleeps.” 
Rabenius bowed yet deeper, and felt the man’s 


forehead and hands. 


188 THE CHARLES MEN 


‘“‘Tn ten or at most fifteen minutes you will have 
ceased to live. Perhaps these minutes might replace 
the past three years, if you sanctify them rightly. 
You are no longer one of us. Don’t you see that 
your spiritual guide is lying on his knees by you 
with head uncovered? Speak now and tell me your 
last wish; no, your last command. Consider but one 
thing. The regiment is disorganized on your ac- 
count, and meanwhile the others go forward with 
glory or stand already on the storming-ladders. 
You have frightened the younger fellows with your 
death-wound and your wailing, and you alone can 
make it good again. Now they listen only to you, 
and you alone have it in your power to make them 
go against the enemy. Consider that your last words 
will be last forgotten, and perhaps sometime will be 
repeated for those at home, who sit and roast their 
potatoes behind the oven.” 

Bengt Geting lay motionless, and a shadow of 
perplexity passed over his glance. Then he gently 
raised his armsas if foran invocation and whispered, 
‘“‘ Lord, help me to do even so!” 

He gave a sign that now he was able only to 
whisper, and Rabenius laid his face to his so as to 
be ableto hear his words. Then Rabenius motioned 
to the soldiers, but his voice trembled so that he 
could hardly make himself heard. 

“‘ Now Bengt Geting has spoken,” he said.“ This 


is his last wish, that you should take him between 


A CLEAN WHITE SHIRT 189 


you on your muskets and carry him with you in his 
old place in the line, where he has stubbornly 
marched day after day and year after year.” 

The drums now struck up, the music began, and 
with his cheek on the shoulder of one of the sol- 
diers Bengt Geting was carried forward step by step 
over the field toward the foe. Around him followed 
the whole regiment, and ever with bared head Ra- 
benius went behind him, and did not notice that he 
was already dead. 

“T shall see to it,” he whispered, “that you get 
a clean white shirt. You know that the king does 
notregard himselfas morethan the humblest soldier, 
and itis so that he himself wishes sometime to lie.”’ 


Poltava 


N the firstof May Field Marshal Rehnskiold 

gave an evening dinner, and Colonel Appel- 
gren became heated about the forehead and inquis- 
itive ; he rolled bread-crumbs with his fingers and 
looked cross-eyed. 

“Can Your Excellency say why Poltava has to 
be besieged?” 

“‘His Majesty wants to have amusement till the 
Poles and Tartars come with reinforcements.” 

“And nevertheless we know that neitherof them 
is coming. Europe begins to forget our court @ /a 
Diogenes with riding ministers of state, fighting 
chancellor’s clerks, chamberlains falling in battle, 
seats of honor on tree stumps... and with pal- 
aces of tent-cloth, and pancakes and small beer on 
the royal table.” 

““ His Majesty wishes to practise fortifications 
now, and is getting the habit of camping out for the 
rest of his life. So we have time ahead of us. Pol- 
tava is a little flea fortress, which will probably sur- 
render when the first shot cracks.” 

The field marshal became abruptly silent, and 
dropped his fork. 

“IT believe those fellows in the town have gone 
crazy, and are going to defend themselves.” 

He sprang out and threw himself into the saddle. 
All arose and heard a continuous firing. 


POLTAVA 1g! 


The Russian sentries around the walls had the 
custom of shouting long and noisily in the dark- 
ness, “Good bread, good drink!’’ During this 
screaming, Colonel Gyllenkrook, without any one 
being able to hear his approach, had begun to open 
trenches, and had set up a cover, but at that mo- 
ment the king ran over the field, and shouted aloud 
something to his adjutant-general. The fact that he 
held his drawn broadsword prevented him from 
looking ridiculous as he ran. Gyllenkrook asked 
him not to cry out so loud so as not to alarm the 
enemy, but even while he was speaking, the outposts 
weresilent, and began instead tolight their port-fires 
and shoot. Fire-balls that rose aloft threw theirlight 
over the hills and meadow-land,and were reflected 
inthe hurrying waters of the Vorskla. Gyllenkrook’s 
laboring Zaporogeans then sprang back from their 
spades and gabions, and the Swedish soldiers, who 
thumped on their leather coats with the flat of the 
sword, at last began themselves to flee or to lie 
down on the ground. 

In that way the shooting had begun. 

“Look there!” said Gyllenkrook, who stood be- 
hind a tree with the king and the Little Prince. “A 
small cause may bring about such a big confusion, 
and for the last time I dare propose that the whole 
siege be given up. In my prayers unite the tired 
troops and all the unhappy subjects at home. Why 
were we not commanded hither in the winter, when 


192 THE CHARLES MEN 


the town might have been easily taken? Now the 
garrison is strengthened every day, and the enemy’s 
whole army is on theadvance. We have barely thirty 
cannon left, and the powder, which has many times 
been wet and dried again, only casts the shot a little 
way from their muzzles.”’ 

“‘ Nonsense, nonsense! Why, we’ve shot away 
many a log thicker than a scaling-post.”’ 

“But here we need to shoot away many hun- 
dreds.” 

“Tf we can shoot away one, we can shoot away 
hundreds. We must perform just what is extraor- 
dinary, so that we get reputation and honor from 
it. Now we shall let the Zaporogeans see that they 
can work here without the least danger.” 

The king stuck his broadsword under his arm, 
and went out into the rain of shot on the field. 
Behind him followed the Little Prince, pale, erect, 
festal as a youth in an ancient procession to a sacri- 
fice at the temple. 

Two thick logs were driven down like two gate- 
posts close to the open trench, and there the king 
took his stand behind a fallen fire-ball, whose day- 
light brilliance exposed him to the enemy. The 
Little Prince gave him a hesitating side-look, and 
felt up and down his sword-hilt with his hand, 
which trembled a little. After that he climbed up on 
one of the logs and took a position with his arms at 
his side. Then a junior officer, who was called Mor- 


POLTAVA 193 


ten Preacher, stepped up on the other log. He 
had a face brown as leather, black hair, and brass 
rings in his ears. Motionless as two painted wooden 
statues in some Catholic country district, the two 
guards stood in this way behind their king, and the 
furious Russians directed their catapults and field- 
pieces and muskets at the remarkable spectacle. No 
one wished to humble himself and descend first, and 
for that reason they had to stay. There was whis- 
tling and swishing as of whips and rods, as of storm- 
gusts and pipes, while cannon-balls, striking near, 
threw gravel and clods on high. It lightened and 
thundered, the ground trembled like a frightened 
horse, and splinters and bits of stone whirled 
by. 

“The king is there! Now he'll be shot!” cried 
the soldiers, rushing forward and driving the Zapo- 
rogeans among them. Again they seized the spades, 
and again the Zaporogeans tore up the turf and 
opened the earth, so that they could lie down and 
get shelter. 

In the light of the burning pitch stood the mon- 
arch of the generals and dignitaries, the comrade 
of thesoldiers, at once knight errant, king, and phi- 
losopher. All day long dark memories had slunk in 
his footsteps. He recalled Axel Hard, whom he 
himself had killed by accident, and Klinckowstrom, 
the friend of his youth, shot dead. He felt the loss 
of neither, but he could not forget their bloody 


194 THE CHARLES MEN 


clothes. All the heaven-storming gayety of boy- 
hood, however, awoke to life and silenced the heavy 
thoughts, when one heard the bullets. He had 
drained the cup of warlike adventure to the bottom, 
and the drink needed to be spiced more strongly 
every day to have relish. He began to see the great 
clamorous victories in a colder light as they became 
rarer. To besure he could still sometimes talk about 
ruling great states, but that was mostly so that these 
should provide him daily with a hundred more gal- 
lant guardsmen. He never forgot that any moment 
might be his last, but the years of misfortune were 
come. How sweet would not repose be after a glori- 
ous death! To will, to know he had the power, but 
yet to fail and becomea mockery, because the others 
could no longer, follow — that was the breath of frost 
from the autumn of life. He wished to prove, he 
wished to show, that he was still the exceptional man 
under God’s protection. If he were not that, then 
he wished to fall like the plainest soldier. 
Morten Preacher meanwhile grew so excited that 
he could not hold himself motionless on the pillar, 
but shifted the musket from his back. Who did not 
know Morten Preacher, the sharpshooter, who 
could make even the king clap his hands? Either 
an infantryman or a cavalryman he could bring 
down in full career. He muttered and laughed, laid 
the weapon to his eye, and shot at a shadow that 
climbed in the farthest cherry-tree. Struck by the 


POLTAVA 195 


ball, it tumbled down among the blossoming twigs 
like a bird. Then a hunter’s enthusiasm came over 
Morten Preacher, and he hopped down and sprang 
to the spot. 

There lay an old man, shot dead, and beside him 
stood a little girl of nine years. 

“That ’s father,” she said without crying, and 
looked at Morten Preacher. “‘ We were out picking 
nettles, and on the way home—” 

“Well, on the way home—?” 

“‘We heard shooting, and then father climbed 
up to look around. That is father’s cherry-tree.” 

Morten Preacher shook his head, took off his 
hat and tore at his hair, and sat down. 

“‘God forgive me —the old man has never done 
me any harm. Dear child—you cannot understand 
this. But I havea ducat in my pocket. Take it! You 
see, my child, I’ma hunter, you understand, a regu- 
lar old expert hunter. Formerly I had my cottage 
and my sweetheart, who quarrelled and struck at 
me because I never moved my spade —you know 
what a spade is?—but only sat in the woods and 
listened to the blackcock’s song. Hearken now! 
Then one morning I took my musketoon and my 
dog and went my way out into the world.” 

The girl turned over the ducat in the light of the 
fire, but he drew her to his knee, and stroked her 
softly on the cheeks. 

“When I had gone along so the first day, I shot 


196 THE CHARLES MEN 
the dog. When I had gone another day, I gave the 


gun to a forester who showed me the way. After 
that I had nothing.” 

“Can one buy coppers for it?” 

“Surely, surely. So when I joined the army like 
that and got me a war musket, then, as you may 
believe, I became a hunter again. But Heaven have 
pity!—You shall come here every evening in the 
dusk, and then you shall get half of my day’s ra- 
tions and all I can pick up.” | 

She stared at the musket in the grass, so he rose 
and went, leaving it there. 

‘The girl can’t know that it was I who fired the 
shot, and she shall never get to know it.— You are 
a Judas, who has robbed an innocent man of life. — 
Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill!” 

He held his forehead and tottered away over the 
field. Then he came to d’Albedyhll’s Dragoons, 
who lay around a log fire and read prayer-books, 
and there he sat down to read, until finally he be- 
gan to pray aloud and preach. 

“‘ What news?”’ the soldiers asked next morning 
of Brakel’s red-haired sutler, a little knowing West 
Gotlander, who stood in his gray blouse among the 
pots and hung-up clothes. 

“News? Morten Preacher must have had a sun- 
stroke in the middle of the night and become ripe 
for the fool’s locker. He goes bare-headed down 
to the river and shouts. When the preacher’s fever 


POLTAVA 197 


sets in on him, he always says he has been out and 
shot somebody.” 

In gloomy silence the soldiers received tin bowls 
hardly half full. 

“Bread or dead. Why don’t we go ahead and 
storm before it’s too late?” 

“The king is working with ditches, and Gyllen- 
krook has to stand by the work night and day. Just 
listen to Morten Preacher now down by the water! 
Here has been praying and psalm-singing lately so 
that it makes one warm at heart to hear the field 
marshal go on the rampage.” 

At dusk Morten Preacher slunk away to the 
cherry-tree, where the little nine-year-old stood al- 
ready waiting with her smooth flaxen, almost white 
hair and her serious face. 

He had with him his day’s rations, and he gave 
her his last kopek for the promise that he might 
kiss her on both cheeks. 

“Ts your mother living?” 

She shook her head. 

““What’s your name?” 

* Dunya.” 

He wanted to kiss her again on the cheeks, but 
she moved away. 

“Give me a kopek first!”’ 

He went back to the camp—and begged kopek 
pieces of all whom he met. 

“) will watch over her when there 1s a storming. 


198 THE CHARLES MEN 


She is like a little, little princess. I will lay by from 
my pay, so that one day she will have something 
to get married on.— Why should she not get mar- 
ried ?’—Surely, surely! I have, to be sure, my wife 
at home, and I have a sweetheart in the baggage- 
train, too. And it seems I’m a murderer. Surely a 
little princess shall marry!” 

He had made a copy of St. John’s Gospel and, 
sitting down, he read aloud from it tod’ Albedyhll’s 
Dragoons. 

All the plants of spring flamed up over the hilly 
meads down to the yellowish banks of the Vorskla, 
but the soldiers looked only toward Poltava, which 
shone out through clumps of forest with its white 
cloister walls, its wooden towers, palisades, and ram- 
parts, on which young and old men, women, and 
children had thrown up a breastwork of sacks filled 
with earth, of wagons, bundles of twigs, and barrels. 

“What’s the news? Will they never lead us 
against the foe?” the soldiers inquired of the sutler. 

“The foe is so kind as to come to us instead,” 
he answered, and dried his forehead with his blouse. 
“In the night I heard how he rolled his field-pieces. 
The heavy firing is not from the Swedes, for we 
have no other cannon-balls left than those which 
the Zaporogeans pick up out of the ground. It’s 
the czar’s whole army that’s already standing on 
the other side of the river.” 

Then came Major-General Lagercrona, spurring 


POLTAVA 199 


his horse and shouting that the king was wounded 
in the foot. Beside the royal litter the field marshal 
pointed out the situation of the seventeen redoubts 
which the enemy had already begun to throw up 
at the village of Pietruska. 

““What’s the news?” muttered the soldiers daily 
around the sutler. 

“If there’s nothing else that any one offers, then 
I’m the richer,” answered he, and pointed with his 
ladle around the verdant landscape. “ The king has 
got mortification in his wound. The brandy is done. 
The bread is done. I’ve a little porridge for you to- 
day — but then that’s done. The enemy has barred 
us in and disputes our retreat. Oh, the devil, the 
devil! It’s only the Swedes that can stand such 
bitter days.” 

He stamped on the turf, put the ladle to his eye, 
and aimed like an assassin at the king’s battered 
cabin, but the heroic, frost-bitten heads around him 
lowered their eyes. 

“Thou shalt not kill!’? whispered Morten 
Preacher with upraised arms. 

So passed the month of May, and the heat of 
June shone in through the tent-cloths. The soldiers 
sat in a row and twined wreaths for midsummer- 
poles, but did not talk. They thought of the pas- 
tures at home, of the cottages, of the wide, wide 
moors. 

On Sunday, a little before evensong, Morten 


200 THE CHARLES MEN 


Preacher slipped to the grove, where little Dunya, 
in return for some kopeks, handed him a basket 
with the first half-ripened cherries. He ate them 
along with her, patted her small hands, and played 
with her, carrying her like a child, but he could not 
get her to smile. For his last kopek he was allowed 
to kiss her three times on the cheeks. 

When he came back there was clamor and 
unrest. Officers inspected the soldiers’ equipment 
and thumped on their swords, which here and there 
were so ground that they were like worn scythes. 
Brakel’s sutler pulled together his empty pans. The 
king had resolved to deliver battle. 

On the grassy banks outside the king’s window 
the generals and colonels were already sitting to re- 
ceive their divisions and written instructions. There 
sat the melancholy Lewenhaupt with his great clear 
eyes and a littleLatin pocket lexicon stuck between 
the buttons of his coat. There sat the gallant Creutz 
with hands crossed over the pommel of his sword, 
and Sparre and Lagercrona carried on a noisy con- 
versation in loud tones. Colonel Gyllenkrona stood 
by the table, bent over his fortification drawings, 
with which he appeared to be so fascinated that he 
did not notice the others in the least, but occupied 
himself instead with carefully and slowly flicking 
the grains of sand from his beloved sketches. Lean- 
ing back a little by the door,1n the worst of tempers, 
stood the field marshal himself with his pointed, 


POLTAVA 201 


somewhat turned-up nose and his puckered, pur- 
ple-red girl’s mouth. 


In the dusk began the march with furled banners 
and without music, and the king’s litter was set 
down for a while in a grove in advance of the life- 
guards. From the field were heard sounds of the 
enemy knocking and hammering on their palisades 
as upon waiting scaffolds. The band of Charles 
men, once so proud, had now so little shot and 
powder that they could not bring along to the en- 
counter more than four poor field-pieces, and now 
when they heard hammer-blows so near, many 
among the scarred warriors were seized with cor- 
poral fear and vainly offered a ducat for a swallow 
of brandy. It was the wane of the moon. The 
horses stood saddled, and the men had their mus- 
kets or carbines at their side. From one of the 1n- 
fantry regiments was heard murmuring and whis- 
pering,as the chaplain distributed the Communion, 
and he had to grope with his left hand in the dark- 
ness to put the chalice tothe mouths of the kneeling 
soldiers. Around the litter, beside which the king 
had stuck his broadsword into the earth, the gen- 
erals had lain down for a moment in their cloaks, 
and Piper sat on a drum with his back against a 
tree. To break the force of gloomy thoughts and 
avoid one another, they began a philosophic dis- 


202 THE CHARLES MEN 


course with the king. He sat in a circle of ponderers 
and taught like a master in his school, and Lewen- 
haupt, the honest old Latinist colonel, recited 
Roman verses. 

When he ceased, he took a burning torch from 
the attendants and threw the light on the king, 
whose head had slid to one side. Piper and all the 
generals arose and forgot their spite, so beautiful 
appeared to them the.aspect of the sleeper. His hat 
lay on his knee, and the coverlet was folded about 
the hurt and bandaged foot. The emaciated and 
fever-wasted countenance with the frost-bites on 
nose and cheek had become even smaller than be- 
fore, and harderand moreset. Yellowish and humid, 
it was already shadowed by a premature old age, but 
there was a drawing and twitching of the lips. It 
looked as though he was dreaming. 

The king of the Charles men dreamed that he 
saw an endless line of giggling and tittering folk, 
who went hurriedly pastand held their hands before 
their faces to hide how they laughed at him. Some- 
times they were bright green or blue,and they shone 
like lighted lanterns. Finally,onasweating bay,there 
came a tall man who was completely clad in dusty 
silk taffeta. “Begone! you bald and lame Swede,” 
he cried, guffawing from the back of his horse. “In 
this very place, three hundred years ago, the hordes 
of Tamerlane cut down the united armies of the 
West. What would you do to me and my ocean of 


POLTAVA 203 


men with your last thinned-out regiments and your 
four field-pieces? My men are thieves and drunken 
miscreants, and are of less use to me than nails in 
a plank, but I make good use of such nails. I am 
building at a great ship to sail the centuries, and | 
myself am still the same to-day as when I stood at 
my trade, a simple carpenter in Saardam. Millions 
upon millions shall bless my work.” 

The king would have answered, but he found 
that his tongue was paralyzed. 

Lewenhaupt knelt with bared head, and touched 
him on the shoulder. “My most gracious lord, day 
is dawning, and I call down God’s protection over 
your noble person and actions.” 

The glow of morningalready burned between the 
tree trunks, and the king opened his eyes. Straight- 
way he grasped his broadsword. As soon as he 
noted the many men who stood around him and 
the bearded cavalry chaplain Norberg and all the 
attendants, his expression changed, and he nodded 
with his usual chilly friendliness— but the dream 
still stood out clear in his thoughts. It seemed to 
him that the others, too, must have seen it. 

“What is a kingdom?” he said. “An accident, 
a far-stretching estate with fortresses at the outly- 
ing farms. Battles and negotiations move the bound- 
aries. And yet, czar, supposing you have power over 
millions but not over yourself? The Lord God may 
so ordain that men shall one day inquire less con- 


204 THE CHARLES MEN 


cerning states, but all the more concerning individ- 
uals. If I conquer you, your whole ship takes fire 
and becomes ashes, but if you cut down me and 
my men, you only fulfil thereby the victory of my 
achievements,” 

Lewenhaupt gripped Creutz by the arm, and 
whispered mournfully: “ Dear brother, dark fore- 
bodings will not slip from my mind. Shall we all ever 
again stand together under God’s free heaven? Hark 
how the field marshal swears and curses behind the 
Upplanders. Gyllenkrook won’t even go forward to 
him and ask for orders. You are holding back, too. 
And look how haughtily Piper is glowering after 
us!” 

“The Swedes always look haughtily at one an- 
other. For that reason they will some day be un- 
done, and their name erased among peoples. Our 
children in the tenth or twentieth generation will 
see the time. To-day is only the beginning.” 

“The Lord pardon your words! Never did I see 
more glorious champions of God than the Swedes, 
and never a people so wholly free from the self- 
assurance and rough hands of a despotic will. The 
king is nowtooill to hold us together longer, though 
he pretends to be as confident as a young cornet. He 
was given at birth the recklessness which the gods 
lend their favorites, but now—” 

“Nowe” 

‘““Now he has got the impenetrable and over- 


POLTAVA 205 


mastering delusion to which the favorite’s reckless- 
ness hardens when the gods abandon him.” 

Lewenhaupt pressed his hat on his head and 
drew his sword, but turned yet again to Creutz and 
whispered: ‘‘ Perhaps men such as I with my care 
forthe rankand file,and Gyllenkrook with his com- 
pass-case and all his redoubts adorned with pali- 
sades, have never all this time understood him 
rightly. You with your broadsword have blindly 
obeyed. May it be granted us all to-day to fulfil 
his mission with him, for I foresee that he who sur- 
vives the eveningwill envy the brothers who by then 
have entered into eternal blessedness.” 

The riders now sprang into the saddle. Lewen- 
haupt went to his foot-regiments, and in the light 
of daybreak they saw before them the expectant 
field. It was black. It was already burnt. It was a 
heap of ashes, which without flower or grass-blade 
vanished between clumps of trees into the barren 
steppes. It was so level that a cannon-carriage could 
easily be driven back and forth. 

Out in front of the largest Russian redoubt came 
a red-clad rider, who fired off his pistol. Then the 
enemy let all their drums beat behind the outworks, 
on which appeared innumerable troops of soldiers 
and standards and catapults and field-pieces. Im- 
mediately the Swedish music answered throughout 
all the regiments. 

The indomitable Axel Sparre and Karl Gustaf 


206 THE CHARLES MEN 


Roos rushed in front of the army with their bat- 
talions, and stormed the field redoubts. Horses 
snorted, harness creaked, swords and carbines clat- 
tered, and ashes and dust fell over the clumps of 
trees so that the green was quenched on the leaf- 
age. 

The king sent Creutz with the left wing after the 
conquering Sparre, and behind the captured en- 
trenchments the enemy’s cavalry rushed in flight 
toward the swampy meadows by the Vorskla. On 
the other side Lewenhaupt advanced with his in- 
fantry, occupied two redoubts, and disposed himself 
to attack the enemy’s camp from the south with 
the bayonet. There the confusion was so great that 
women began to harness horses to the baggage 
wagons, but the czarina, a tall womanof some twenty 
years with a high bosom, white forehead, and deeply 
colored cheeks, still stood out by the wounded 
among her bandage-strips and water-flasks with an 
almost haughty tranquillity. 

Meanwhile the generals collected around the 
Swedish king’s litter, which was borne along not 
far from the East Gotland infantry regiment and 
set down by a bog. Here a halt was commanded, 
and a crowd with deep bowing and taking off of 
hats began already to congratulate His Majesty and 
wish for further progress. While the lackey Hult- 
man was filtering water and catching it in a silver 


goblet, the king said: ‘‘ Major-General Roos has 


POLTAVA 207 


been surrounded, and the field marshal has there- 
fore checked the other troops, but Lagercrona and 
Sparre have been sent back to help Roos on, and he 
is likely to come here soon.” 

Thus the army remained standing there awhile, 
but soon Sparre came up, sprinkled with drops of 
blood, and related that he could not get through 
on account of the enemy’s superior numbers. The 
troops now marched back and forth for a long time 
without the officers’ knowing where they should lead 
them, and during the wasted time the Russians got 
fresh courage. Then Lewenhaupt suddenly put 
himself in motion, marched to the stretch of woods 
where Creutz’ squadrons had taken position, and 
there drewup the infantry in lineagainst the enemy. 
No one knew from where the command for this had 
been given out, and, beside himself with wrath, the 
field marshal galloped forward to the king’s litter, 
which went beside the Guards. 

“Ts it Your Majesty who commanded Lewen- 
haupt with the infantry to draw himself up against 
the enemy?” 

The disrespectful tones took the king aback, and 
as if by the light of a dark lantern that has been 
suddenly opened, he saw how wearily and coldly 
even his closest favorites in the circle were staring 
at him. 

“No,” heanswered reluctantly, but became blush- 
ing red, and all understood that he hed. 


208 THE CHARLES MEN 


Then in the furiously raging field marshal every 
last glimmer of respect and trust was quenched. He 
gave voice to the spite and despair which all had 
nourished for days and months. The king, acclaimed 
for his love of veracity, had all at once been humil- 
iated to the level of a wounded soldier, had behaved 
himself churlishly, and tried to exculpate himself 
with rude prevarications. Rehnskiolddid not reflect. 
The moment of retribution had come. He lost con- 
trol of himself. Hewanted to take revenge and pun- 
ish and humiliate. He could not pretend that he 
believed in the lying. He could not even use the 
customary form of address. 

“Yes, yes,” he shouted from his horse, “that’s 
what you always do. Would that you would leave 
it to me!”’ 

With that he turned his back on him. 

The king sat motionless on the litter. He had 
been shamed before the whole troop, and his diffi- 
dence and disinclination for bickering had befooled 
him into an unpremeditated and pitiful trick. His 
own men had heard him lie likean interrogated bag- 
gage-driver. Hecould not take back his words with- 
out still more exposing his shame. The degrada- 
tion he had brought upon himself as man was for 
him harder to endure than if he had lost his crown. 
He wanted to spring up, throw himself on a horse, 
and take along with him the deep ranks, Ais men, 
who still believed that he was the chosen of God. 


POLTAVA 209 


But the pain in his foot and a great lassitude re- 
strained him. His cheeks still glowed, but it was the 
heat of fever, and for the first time the broadsword 
trembled in the hand which he was now barely 
able to raise. 

“Take the litter before the front!”’ he shouted. 
“Take the litter before the front!”’ 

“The cavalry have not got forward yet,” burst 
out Gyllenkrook with vehemence. “Is it possible 
that the battle shall begin so soon?” 

“They are marching now,” answered the king 
with vexation, ‘and the enemy is coming out of 
his lines with the infantry.” 

ThenGyllenkrook commended theking to God’s 
protection, and seated himself on his horse beside 
the Guards, who straightway advanced and gave the 
first volley. 

The battle-token was a straw fastened on the hat, 
and through the noise of shots and trumpets and 
oboes and drums and cavalry kettledrums sounded 
the battle-cry of the troops: “God with us! God with 
us!” In the throng and farther out on the field old 
war-comrades and near relatives, who had aforetime 
sat merrily together at home at wedding and chris- 
tening, met and shouted to one another a last greet- 
ing. Where there was more space, captains and lieu- 
tenants and ensigns marched before the battalions, 
pale as corpses, in time with the music, as if they 
had filed up toa paradein the citadel square by the old 


210 THE CHARLES MEN 


Three Crowns; butthesoldiers clenched hands over 
their empty cartridge-boxes. Through the midst of 
the fire from the redoubts the Life Guards went 
in a stubborn line with muskets on shoulder, but 
when they came to close quarters with the enemy, 
they shook their clicking weapons savagely and 
grasped their bayonets. Dust and dirt soon be- 
grimed them all,so that the green coats of the enemy 
could no longer be distinguished from the blue, and 
Swedes lifted musket butt against Swedes. In front 
of Kruse’s dragoons Cornet Queckfelt tumbled 
from his horse with a bullet in his body and the ban- 
ner against his breast. Major Ridderborg, whoin the 
morning had seen his gray-haired father fall among 
the troopers by the king’s litter, was dragged un- 
conscious from the hand-to-hand struggle. In front 
of the Nylandregiment fell Colonel Torstenson, and 
Lieutenant Gyllenbogel stood with shot-wounds in 
both cheeks, so that one could see the daylight 
through them. In a thicket behind the Scanian 
Gentleman-Dragoons reeled Captain Horn, badly 
wounded in the right leg, and his faithful servant, 
Daniel Lidbom, held him around the body and dried 
his forehead. Cavalryman Per Windropp sat dead 
on his horse, in his hand the tatters of a company flag 
that had been torn to pieces, and Lieutenant Pauli, 
who believed him only wounded, offered him his 
canteen. In front of the Kalmar regiment dropped 
Colonel Rank, struck in the heart; Major Lejon- 


POL TAVA 211 


hjelm lay with his leg shot off; and by the corpse of 
Lieutenant-Colonel Silversparre Ensign Djurklo 
foughtwith brokensword tosavethebanner, until he 
sank down dying. Around him lay half the non-com- 
missioned officers and half the men asa hero’s watch. 
The Jonkoping regiment, which was nearest the 
redoubts, carried along their wounded colonel, 
and after Lieutenant-Colonel Night-and-Day and 
Major Oxe had fallen in their blood, Captain Mo6r- 
ner took command. Beside him lay prostrate in the 
ashes on the ground Ensign Tigerskiold with his 
face hidden in his hands, propped on his elbows 
and bleeding from five wounds. Scarcely a fourth of 
the regiment could still bear arms. 

At this moment the field marshal came riding, 
and cried out to Morner with untimely warmth: 
“Where the deuce have the regiment’s officers gone 
off to?” 

“They are lying wounded or dead.” 

“Why the thousand devils aren’t you lying there 
with them?” 

“No, my old mother’s supplications have called 
down God’s protection over me, and therefore I’m 
alive and have the honor of commanding this regi- 
ment, which has done and will do its duty as true 
warriors. — Stand, boys, stand!” 

Colonel Wrangel lay already dead and unrecog- 
nizable, and his recruits sought in vain to prop him 
up under the arms. Colonel Ulfsparre, who went 


212 THE CHARLES MEN 
before the West Gotlanders, fell with his hands 


pressed to his heart, and his major, the dauntless 
Sven Lagerberg, was struck down backwards by a 
musket-ball. The whole hostile army went over 
him. He heard the horses and the cannon-carriages. 
He was trampled and kicked and rolled in ashes 
and dirt among stiffening corpses and moaning 
wounded, till a wounded dragoon finally took him 
on his horse, and mercifully conducted him to the 
baggage-train. 

The beloved old banners, shot into strips, were 
still fluttering in goodly numbers over the human 
sea, but they wavered and tottered, they were torn 
and snapped, and at last they sank and vanished one 
by one. The Uppland regiment, which drew most 
of its men from the heart of Sweden, from the an- 
cient home of the Svea at Malardale, was annihi- 
lated. Flags with the cross-surmounted apple in the 
corner were twisted from the clenched hands of the 
fallen,and amid Cossack pikesand butts and sabres 
Colonel Stjernhook was stretched on the ground, 
as he stammered: ‘‘ Now is the time when we may 
cry: Father, itis finished!”’ Lieutenant-Colonel von 
Post and Major Anrep fell almost side by side. Cap- 
tains Gripenberg and Hjulhammar,and Lieutenant 
Essen, and the three boyishly slender and beard- 
less Ensigns Flygare, Brinck, and Duben already 
lay in the throes of death. ‘Stand, boys, stand!” 
shouted officers and soldiers, and fell over one an- 


POLTAVA 23 


other, so that of corpses and rags, of clothing and 
sod and sand, was built a mound which served the 
living for a breastwork. Whistling grapeshot and 
musket-balls, grenades and exploding canister, 
rained over the fighting and the dead, and the air 
was so saturated with dirt and smoke that mencould 
see only a horse’s length ahead. 

Then the troops began to waver. Lewenhaupt 
drew a pistol from the holster and pointed it at his 
own men. He threatened and struck. “Stand, boys, 
in Jesus’ holy name! I see the king’s litter.” “If the 
king is here, we ’ll stand,” answered the soldiers. 
«Stand, boys! halt, stand! God with us!” they 
shouted to themselves, as if to control their limbs, 
that trembled and dripped with sweat and blood. 
But step by step they yielded, and the riders reined 
in their horses, until, with slashed faces and hands, 
they finally wheeled about in wild flight, man after 
man, and trampled one another down. Under the 
rising clouds of smoke they saw the king, who amid 
fallen troopers, bearers, and attendants lay on the 
ground without a hat, supported on his elbow, with 
the injured foot propped on the crushed litter, over 
which had been spread the clay-spotted cloak of the 
slain trooper Oxehufvud. The stiffened face was 
raven-black with grime, but the eyes kindled, and 
he stammered: ‘‘Swedes! Swedes!” 

In the yielding ranks many stood still when they 
recognized the voice, because it seemed to them that 


214 THE CHARLES MEN 


even if they could save themselves now, they must 
sometime on their death-bed hear across the pillow 
that timid and lonely voice. He had not the strength 
to raise himself, but they lifted him on their crossed 
pikes like a doomed and helpless invalid. Againand 
again, though, the bearers were shot down, and yet 
in that instant, when the bleeding men succumbed, 
they stretched up their arms to support him so 
that he should not be hurt in the fall. Then Major 
Wolffelt lifted him on his horse, and afterwards fell 
himself under the weapons of the pursuing Cos- 
sacks. The foot, which was laid over the horse’s 
neck, bled violently, and the bandage dragged in 
the dust. A cannon-ball from the entrenchments 
struck off the horse’s leg, but Trooper Gierta lifted 
the king upon his charger and, himself wounded, 
mounted on the three-legged and bleeding horse. 
The cavalrymen who had made a ring about the 
king could hardly hold back the pursuers. 

Meanwhile Gyllenkrook rushed over the field, 
and exhorted the straggling soldiers to rally, but 
they answered him: “ Weare all wounded and our 
officers dead.” He then met the field marshal, and 
now upon the day of retribution there was no 
longer any deference. 

Gyllenkrook shouted to him offensively, “‘ Does 
Your Excellency hear that the volleys are still 
sounding on our left wing! Here are a mass of 


POLTAVA 215 


squadrons that have sat down. Order them to go 
somewhere!” 

“Here everything is mad! Here to be sure some 
obey me with their haunches, but few with their 
hearts,” answered the field marshal, and rode fur- 
ther and further to the left. At the same time Gyl- 
lenkrook saw Piper with his men of the chancellery 
ride off to the right. Had the two Excellencies 
spoken together? He shouted after them that they 
were betaking themselves straight toward the en- 
emy, but they did notturn about. Then he struck his 
hand on the pommel of his saddle, and understood 
that now the wine of patience was drunk, that now 
there remained only captivity or death. 

There lay behind him no longer a field. There 
grew from the earth a boundless wood, but the 
trunks were men and the boughs weapons. It 
broadened out. It filled the whole landscape, and 
constantly, constantly spread forward over the 
bleeding and dying. It was the czar’s army, that 
marched on to take possession of its land and ded- 
icate its empire to future times. Ever nearer and 
nearer was heard an uncanny and dull-sounding 
religious hymn. Slowly, step by step, as in a funeral 
procession, between swinging thuribles and high 
over the heads of thousands upon thousands, was 
borne the giant standard. On the cloth appeared 
the czar’s ancestral tree, surrounded by saints, and 


216 THE CHARLES MEN 


above, under the Trinity, was his own likeness. 

The Swedish fugitives gathered around the king 
by the baggage, where the Swedish Nobleman- 
Guards and some other regiments kept watch. 
Having bound up his foot and tolerably wiped off 
the grime, he now sat in a blue wagon beside the 
wounded Colonel Hard. 

“Where is Adlerfeldt, the chamberlain?” he 
asked. 

Those who stood around him answered, “He 
fell by a cannon-shot close to Your Majesty’s lit- 
ter.” 

At that moment the Dalecarlian regiment came 
past, shattered and in great disorder. 

“‘Dalecarlians,” inquired the king, “where is 
Siegeroth, your Colonel, and Major Svinhufvud, 
and where is the merry Drake, who is said to have 
fought so valiantly at the redoubt that he shall get 
a regiment?” 

‘They-aresshot,-allvof them’ 

“Where, then, are the Little Prince, and Piper, 
and the field marshal?” 

Those around him shook their heads and looked 
at one another. Should they once for all tell him 
the whole truth? Should they on that day of judg- 
ment expose all his loneliness? Should they tell 
him, too, that Hedwig Sofia, his favorite sister, had 
lain for half a year in her cofin —unburied? There 
was none who dared to do that. 


POLTAVA eo ery 


“Captured,” they answered reluctantly. 

“Captured? Captured among the Muscovites? 
Better go among the Turks, then. Forward!” 

He paled, but he spoke calmly and almost tri- 
umphantly with the unalterable smile on his lips. 

A grizzled soldier among the Dalecarlians whis- 
pered to the comrades, “Truly I have never seen 
him so youthful and happy since the day at Narva, 
when he went with Stenbock. This is a day of vic- 
tory to him.” 

The wagon rolled away, and the king of the 
Charles men, in front of his disordered, fleeing 
army of haughty ragamuffins, swearing baggage 
crones, cripples moaning loudly, and limping 
horses, marched with flying banners and resound- 
ing music as from his greatest victory. 


By two o’clock the last volleys were fired, and 
then stillness had spread itself over the battle-field, 
where Mazeppa’s last Cossacks and countless Zapo- 
rogeans were impaled alive on stakes. Homesteads 
and mills stood burned, trees shot asunder, and the 
fallen heroes lay with dust and ashes blown over 
them, all with eyes wide open, as if they had stared 
back from another world on the past years and 
on the living. A few captured priests and soldiers 
roamed about, seeking for their countrymen and 
sometimes opening a shallow grave, over which the 


218 | THE CHARLES MEN 


words of burial in the speech of their far-off home- 
land were softly whispered out into the dusk of the 
June evening. After that the grave was again shut, 
to be overgrown with sedge grassand rough thistles. 
For centuries after, they have rustled to the winds 
of the steppes on the gloomy bogland to which the 
Russians gave the name of the Swedes’ Cemetery. 

When one of the priests found Lieutenant-Colo- 
nel Wetzel, who had fallen, together with his two 
sons, he picked up the empty covers of the prayer- 
book which lay beside him, adorned with the fam- 
ily crest. 

“You are the last of your family,” he said; “and 
how many a stock has been extinguished on this 
field! Galle, Siegeroth, Mannersvard, Rosenskidld, 
von Borgen. As I now tear apart the crest on this 
cover and strew it to the winds, I also in the name 
of my afflicted, my annihilated father-folk, shatter 
the coats-of-arms above you all.” 

A multitude of bodies were thrown together in 
a heap outside of the field entrenchment where the 
day’s conflict had been hottest, but the others re- 
mained strewn about. The air was filled almost at 
once with a stale vapor and with countless flapping 
crows. But darkness descended silently with all the 
more solemnity over the wide city of graves, though 
the wounded still cried for water. Those most 
pitiably mangled prayed that some one in mercy 
would finish them with a sword-thrust, or they 


POLTAVA 219 


dragged themselves to a horse that had been shot, 
pulled the pistols from the holsters, and took them- 
selves from the light of day, after they had on 
tremulous knees called down a blessing over all at 
home and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Then a mor- 
tally wounded dragoon began to speak words of 
power and to thank God for his glorious death- 
wounds. Over himself and his comrades he uttered 
the burial words and thrice took earth with his 
hands and cast it upon his breast. “Out of earth 
are we come, to earth we shall return.”’ After that 
he preached with ecstasy of the Resurrection, and 
finally with a loud voice took up a funeral hymn, 
and twenty or thirty voices answered far off in the 
dark under the star-bright heavens. 

Morten Preacher, who stole around on the plain 
without feeling any terror of the fallen, contin- 
ued the psalm when the dragoon was silent. Then 
he caught sight of an old woman, who came with 
a torch. After her followed a line of peasants with 
long, rude carts, on which they loaded clothing 
and all manner of plunder. A fallen cornet, who 
was not yet dead, defended himself with his hand 
and would not let go from him a necklace with a 
little silver cross, but they thrust him down with a 
hay-fork. 

Then Morten Preacher sprang forward. “Thou 
shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill!”” he whispered. 
Among the plundering women he recognized his 


220 THE CHARLES MEN 


nine-year-old Dunya, his little princess. His whole 
countenance changed, and he stretched out both 
hands to her, half like a father, half like a bashful 
lover. She stared at him, and burst into a silly 
laugh. 

“That’s the wicked Swede,” she cried, “who 
bribed me so as to get cherries and kiss me on the 
cheeks.” 

She sprang upon him like a cat and tore the ear- 
rings from him, so that the blood ran down the sides 
of his neck. He fell backwards, and the women 
seized him and struck him and tore his clothes from 
him. They came upon his transcript of St. John’s 
Gospel, and strewed the leaves around like feathers 
from a plucked fowl. They pulled off his flap-boots 
and ragged stockings, but when he saw his little 
Dunya clutch at a hay-fork, he wrenched himself 
loose with the strength of upflaming hate and fled 
in his shirt over wounded and dead. 

“Not even trust in a guileless heart is left us 
more,” he muttered, and clambered up on a Jame 
horse which had attached itself to him in the dark- 
ness. “God has abandoned us. This is the judg- 
ment. All is over, and the whole world is dark.” 

He rode for two nights and two days, and 
wounded stragglers pointed out the road. He found 
the fleeing Swedes on a peninsula between the 
Vorskla and the bright Dnieper, which spread it- 


self out like a lake between banks overgrown with 


POLTAVA 22) 


reeds, underbrush, and bushes. The Russians were 
close behind them on the landward side, but when 
the outposts saw Morten Preacher in his bloody 
shirt, riding bare-back on the lame horse, they 
sprang to one side in terror and only shot after him 
when he was already past. 

The sun burned hot as fire. The wounded and 
those with camp-fever were bedded under bushes 
by the water. The generals stood in conversation, 
and Lewenhaupt turned mournfully to Creutz. 

“Tf the king is taken, the men of Sweden will 
abandon their houses and leave their last wisp of 
hay for his ransom. The responsibility is ours. 
This war is a game of chess, where everything is 
decided by taking the kings. On my knees I have 
prayed him to have himself rowed across the river, 
but he pushed me away, and said he had serious 
matters to consider.” 

“‘ My dear brother, you talk to him as toa gouty 
statesman. You should never talk to him as toa 
man, but as to a youth who is proud of being chal- 
lenged to show his manhood.” 

Creutz went forward to the king’s wagon and 
swung the gloves in his hand with such violence that 
it seemed as if he meant to strike Charles on the 
forehead, but he was at once confounded by his 
radiant glance. 

“Your Majesty is in perplexity?”’ 

“J fight ill with the pen—that’s what I’m think- 


222 THE CHARLES MEN 


ing of. I wish to draw up my will and arrange for the 
succession. Then we’ll set the guns cracking! If I’m 
left on the field, I wish to be buried in my shirt like 
a common soldier on the place where I fall.” 

Creutz twisted and squeezed the gloves; he was 
cowed and lowered his head, like the others. 

“‘ Most gracious lord, I am not of those who pray 
God to spare their life, because full well do I under- 
stand the highest longing of a hero. If Your Maj- 
esty shouldget your bullet. . . well,sobeit,in Jesus’ 
name! But to-day Your Majesty can no longer stay 
in the saddle. God forgive my words, but Your Maj- 
esty has got to the point of being carried around 
helpless, and when the last of us has lost his life, 
there will be left only Your Majesty —a prisoner!” 

“*A man should not only stand one against five, 
he should also be able to stand one against all.” 

“True, true. But—devil take me!—we com- 
mon fellows in uniform are not fit for that. One 
against all? That means one against the whole 
world. For that are needed men of quite a differ- 
ent sort, for we are such pitiful wretches that we 
have nothing to defend ourselves with but our 
blades. Now that I have described the situation 
plainly, I therefore beseech Your Majesty to stay 
with us and not cross the river, because then Your 
Majesty would set yourself one against all. Then 
it would be: What an Alexander to run away and 
leave his troops to the Russians! What a heartless, 


POL TAVA 223 


disgraceful dolt! Look, look! And he took the plate 
and money-barrels from Saxony along instead of 
leaving everythingtotheRussians.Oho, yes, hahaha! 
— We poor honest subjects can never allow that 
Your Majesty should set yourself'as one against the 
whole world in that way, to expose your high per- 
son to the mud-flinging that ignorance and stu- 
pidity will not spare either to the field marshal or 
Piper or Lewenhaupt or the rest of us. When did 
stupidity ever learn tounderstand misfortune? Your 
Majesty wants to die, and therefore it is no sacri- 
fice and no achievement to die—that we old war- 
dogs know; but pride, pride, Your Majesty, to offer 
up that for your subjects is a sacrifice that the sub- 
jects cannot consent to. That the men cannot be 
taken over is clear. We have no barges, no anchors, 
no spikes, not enough logs, no carpenters. There- 
fore I require that Your Majesty remain and do not 
defy the world.” 

“Get the boats ready!” ordered the king. 

Mazeppa, the gallant landed proprietor, had 
collected his trunks and his two barrels of ducats, 
and was already sitting on his wagon far out in the 
water. Zaporogeans and swarms of soldiers tied 
their clothes on their backs, took wagon-lids and 
branches of trees under their arms, and sprang into 
the waves. At midnight the king’s wagon also was 
lifted on two boats tied together, and Gyllenkrook, 
who stood at his feet, dumbly surrendered to Lew- 


224 THE CHARLES MEN 


enhaupt the battle-plan, pasted on a board. No one 
spoke. The night was starry and quiet, and the 
oar-strokes of the troopers died away on the shin- 
ing river. 

‘““We two shall never see him again,” muttered 
Creutz to Lewenhaupt. ‘His eyes were so won- 
derful just now! There is still oil in the lamp, but 
I am gazing curiously at his future. How will he 
be when he is conquered, ridiculed, old?” 

Lewenhaupt answered, “‘’The wreath he twined 
for himself slid off upon his subjects instead. It 
will lie forever on the forgotten graves up there in 
the marshes.—So we must thank him for all he 
has made of us.” 

Far off through the darkness of the night was 
heard the lamenting voice of Morten Preacher: 
««¢ And men have made of me a by-word before the 
world,’ saith Job. ‘And I am become a mockery, 
and mine eyes are wasted with grief, and my limbs 
are all a shadow. Unto corruption I say: thou art 
my father, and unto worms: ye are my mother and 
sister. And where then is my hope? It goeth down 
to the gate of death, when I and it shall rest in the 
earth.’”’ 

Day came on,and Morten Preacher in his bloody 
shirt rode from group to group, examining the men 
in the Catechism and Biblical knowledge. The sol- 
diers stood in silence by the empty tent of the king, 
but when the shout was raised that they must sur- 


POLTAVA 225 


render, and when the Russian general Bauer, tanned 
by the sun, ascended the hill to receive the trophies, 
Morten Preacher stepped down and wrung his 
hands. 

Round about, with their brazen helmets and 
pikes, sat the Cossacks on their tired and panting 
horses, and before them on the ground were laid 
kettledrums and bass-drumsand hornsand muskets 
whose thunder had rolled over battalions, and the 
well-known flags to which once mothers and wives 
had waved farewell from door and stairway and 
window. There was gleaming and sparkling on the 
heather. Sullen old under-officers embraced each 
other sobbing. Some cut off their bandages and let 
the blood run, and two battle-brothers quenched 
each other’s lives with their swords at the same 
time that they threw them down before the con- 
querors. Dumb and threatening, the cripples ad- 
vanced. Therecame youths with frost-bitten cheeks, 
and without nose and ears, so that they were like 
dead men. Ensign Piper, not yet full-grown, who 
had lost his heels, stumbled up on crutches. There 
camethecourtier Gunterfelt, who lacked both hands, 
and had got in France two others of wood, black and 
shining, which fingered up and down on his coat. 
There rattled wooden legs and canes and litters and 
ambulance-wagons. 

Morten Preacher stood with hands clasped. 
Sparks leaped before his eyes. There was a roaring 


226 THE CHARLES MEN 


and moaning within, and the old preaching-spirit 
came so violently over him that he himself heard 
how his voice at one time was choked and hoarse, 
but the next grew so strong that it seemed to him 
as if he were borne away on the wings of it and 
were changed to a flame of fire. 

He reeled forward to the arms that had been 
laid downand pointed to the empty tent ofthe king. 

“He alone is the offender. You, mother or 
widow, clad in mourning, turn his picture to the 
wall! Forbid the little ones to mention his name! 
You, little Dunya, who with your playmates will 
soon be picking flowers on the graves, build his - 
monument with skulls and horses’ heads! You, crip- 
ple, knock with your crutch on the hollow earth and 
summon him to a meeting there below, where thou- 
sands whom he sacrificed await him!—And yet I 
know that one day before the judgment seat of right- 
eousness we shall all limp forward on our wooden 
legs and crutches, and say: ‘Forgive him, Father, 
as we have forgiven him, because our love was both 
his victory and his destruction.’” 

When no one replied, but all stood bent forward 
and dumb as if they had answered the same, his de- 
spair was yet more vehement. He covered his angu- 
lar face with his hands. 

“Tell me by the grace of God that he lives 
cried he. ‘‘Say that he lives!” 

With his black wooden fingers Gunterfelt raised 


lie 


POLTAVA 229 


his hat from his head and answered, “ His Majesty 
is saved.” 

Then Morten Preacher bowed his knee, and 
trembled, and recovered himself. 

‘“ Praised be the Lord of Hosts!” he stammered. 
“If the king is saved, then I will bear whatever 
burden fate shall lay upon me.” 

“Yes, yes, praised be the Lord of Hosts!”  re- 
peated the Swedes mumbling, and all slowly lifted 
their hats from their heads. 


Behold My Children! 
Cee ANDERS GroBERG stood with 


his canteen on Saracen’s Heath. Around him 
reeled and marched the last band of fleeing Swedes 
and Zaporogeans, and on wagons lay those who 
had been wounded at Poltava. The whole night and 
morning Anders Groberg had endured thirst so as 
to spare the last drops of water to the utmost, and 
the torture had now become overpowering. But in 
the very moment he lifted the canteen to his lips, 
he lowered it again. 

“My God, my God!” he stammered, “why 
should I alone drink, when all the others are thirst- 
ing? If Thou hast led us forth into the wilderness 
and the steppes, it is that Thou shouldst sometime 
be able to say: ‘From your poverty-stricken coun- 
try of snow I let you go forth into the world with 
- musket on shoulder to be hailed as heroes and con- 
querors, but when I read your hearts and saw that 
they remained pure, that ye were my children, then 
I tore your clothes in pieces and set crutches in your 
hands and wooden legs under your bodies, so that 
ye should no more hanker after domination over 
men, but should be gathered among my saints. Such 
greatness did I grant unto you.’” 

Anders Groberg stood awhile longer with the 
canteen before him. Then he went on, and handed 
it to the king, who lay in burning fever among the 


BEHOLD MY CHILDREN 229 


sacks of hay on his wagon. The king’s lips adhered to 
his teeth; they split and bled when he opened them. 

“No, no,” he whispered, “give the water to the 
wounded! I have just had a glass.” 

Anders Groberg knew well that the king had had 
no water. He himself was the only man who had 
taken thought for the morrow and saved it up, and 
neither spring nor bog had they found for many a 
mile. But now, as he turned away from the wagon, 
weakness and temptation once more came over him. 
He hung the canteen back at his side and contin- 
ued to march and march without handing it to the 
wounded. He squeezed the stopper and strove in 
his soul, but every time he raised the canteen to 
his mouth, he let it fall again and had not the heart 
to drink of the water. 

“Perhaps; he thought, “T might refresh myself 
with a clearer conscience, if as an offset I should 
humiliate myself in something else.” 

At noon, when the sun burned most hotly, he 
saw a gray-haired subaltern who went almost naked 
with unbandaged wounds on his shoulder. There- 
upon he tore up his shirt, bound the other’s wounds, 
and gave him his coat; but as soonas he shut his 
hand on his canteen again, his unrest of conscience 
woke anew. Then he gave his boots to a sick driver 
lad, who limped along with bare and bleeding feet, 
but when he still could not swallow the water with 
an easy mind in the midst of all the other thirsty 


230 THE CHARLES MEN 


men, he became embittered and hard. He pointed 
with derisive curses at the money-barrels which, full 
of goldand silver, clattered as they were taken along 
on two of the wagons, but which could not provide 
the unfortunate soldiers with a spoonful of brackish 
bog-water. 

“Whip the horses!” he shouted, “whip the 
horses, so that the money-barrels shall not be left 
behind! Whip the men, too!” 

The soldiers answered nothing, because now they 
recognized him again as he used to be formerly, 
when in the years of success he had gone in front 
of the line, bitter and abusive. They did not notice 
that he had hardly heard his own voice before he 
bent his head and began again to cudgel his brains 
and whisper to himself. 

“Must I then of necessity offer up just the one 
thing that has now any worth for me?” he thought. 
“ Haha! May we also some day roll the money- 
barrels on the grass and nevermore touch them 
with our fingers! My God, my God! Once at Ve- 
perik I heard the dying soldier Bengt Geting speak 
with envy of the fallen who had received a clean 
white shirt. My longing dares not rise so high. I de- 
sire so little . . . ah, only this, not to be left lying 
behind the others on the heath, only to be laid in 
the ground, to have earth and grass over me—and 
a couple of words on the muster-roll. Now it will 
stand: Anders Groberg, his fate unknown.” 


BEHOLD MY CHILDREN Dain 


Towards dusk a halt was made to bury thosewho 
had died during the day, and a couple of Zaporo- 
geans had already stuck their spades in the ground. 
In the reedy grass grew a few low bushes with cher- 
ries which, meanwhile, officers and soldiers picked 
and divided among them as a bounty bestowed from 
God’s own hands. Anders Groberg slunk behind 
the bushes to drink the water unseen by the others. 
But just then the trumpets began to blow as a sign 
that the pursuing Russians had again become visible 
against the heaven on the farthest waves of the 
parched desert of grass. 

Anders Groberg opened the tin stopper, but the 
longer he inhaled the moist smell, the harder beat 
his heart, and in the nearest wagon the dying Borje 
Kove,a soldierin charge of the silver, raised himself 
and stared at him. 

Anders Groberg tried to meet his look, but could 
not, and yet again he pushed the draught of refresh- 
ment from him. 

“Blessed are those that hunger and thirst atter 
righteousness,” he said. 

Like an acolyte who gives the sacrament, he bore 
the canteen 1n front of him and held it to the mouth 
of the soldier, and the dying man drank the water 
to the Jast drop. 

Anders Groberg held on tight to the tail-board, 
but when the wheel rolled on again, his hand slipped 
off, and he tottered to his knees on the grass. 


232 THE CHARLES MEN 


“There is no place for me onthe wagons, ”’ hesaid, 
and pulled a spade to him. “Though I’m hardly 
thirty years old, I am as weary and infirm as a man 
of ninety. But leave me one of the spades, so that, 
if my strength stays by me, I may at least be able to 
open the earth and lay me down in my last abode. 
All my unrest has now fallen sweetly to sleep, and 
a voice calls at my ear: ‘Behold my children!’”’ 

Once more the soldiers around the shaking 
wagons began their wandering, and the trumpeters 
turned in the saddle. Flocks of storks with out- 
spread wings hovered in the dusk over the darken- 
ing tracts, and out on the steppe Anders Groberg 
still knelt with the spade in his hands. 

Since then no one has learned anything of his 
fate. ; 


At the Council Table 


N the ante-room of the Council Chamber al- 

ready stood the secretary, Schmedeman, with the 
address to the chiefs of the provinces, which was 
now to be signed, and in which new levies were 
required from impoverished Sweden. 

The lords began to assemble, and old Frdlich, 
who with crossed hands was groaning and snoring 
in a corner beside the sick Falkenberg, suddenly 
awoke. 

“We must hand over to the king the whole 
bank with the money and the patents,” he said 
without lifting his reddened eyelids. 

Then Arvid Horn started forward with such 
vehemence that his chair fell back on the floor, 
and shouted with his arms lifted toward the ceil- 
ing: “ Keep yourself to your heavenly revelations 
and seasons of prayer with sisterEva-Greta and do 
not make thieves of us out of mere good intentions 
toward His Royal Majesty!” 

‘Satan, Satan!” retorted Falkenberg, and rapped 
with his colorless fingers on the arm of the chair. 
“Here is blackguarding and maligning from day 
to day. No Swede any longer respects the honor 
of another, but no one has the courage for an hon- 
est word against him who alone is responsible for 
it all. Yes, don’t you sit down again, you Horn, 
for people are most of all incensed about your yacht 


234. THE CHARLES MEN 


in the Malar, and assert that with the powder 
smoke from your salutes you want to win the same 
gallant favor with Princess Ulrika Eleonora which 
Creutz had with Princess Hedwig Sofia of most 
blessed memory.— Yes, yes, yes, don’t talk any 
more about the person of the king. Read his letter 
instead! Do that! Is there a single line of it that 
is worthy of the leader of an unfortunate people?”’ 
“Bah! Don’t talk about the letter either!’ an- 
swered Horn, picking up his chairand sitting down. 
‘A little prattle for women, evasions, and indiffer- 
ent matters! Don’t ask that a person who never 
exposes himself in a conversation shall set himself 
down in a tent and pour out his soul on a sheet 
of paper! But I may well admit that sometime an 
after-reckoning will follow on all this misery.” 
“Sometime, say you!” continued the invalid 
Falkenberg, and raised himself on his trembling 
arms. “Sometime! Have the Swedes then become 
cringers and hypocrites? Neither Christian the Ty- 
rant nor Erik XIV has done us so much harm as 
this man, and therefore he belongs to the devil. 
Since our men have fallen in the field, only old- 
woman souls are left alive, and those are they that 
now begin to propagate the Swedish people.” 
The venerable Fabian Wrede stood up among 
the speakers, and his voice was wondrously faint 
and quiet. 
“The session is beginning,” he said, and pointed 


AT THE - COUNCIL TABLE 235 


to the open doors. “I’m no cringer. I was never 
of those who jostled around the young master to 
make him of age, and I am in disfavor. My native 
land, that is everything to me — father and mother, 
home, memory, all, all! I know that now my native 
land is bleeding to death. I know, too, that some- 
time retribution will follow. But the present is not 
the time to waste thought upon that. When God 
sets on us the crown of thorns, that man is not 
greatest who most conveniently puts it off, but he 
who himself presses it on all the tighter and says: 
‘Father, here stand I to serve Thee.’— And I say 
to you that never, never amid the victory-banners 
in former years has our little people come nearer 
to imperishable greatness than to-day.” 

Horn went into the assembly hall, but on the 
way he turned to Falkenberg with lowered voice: 
““My mother had many sons besides me. They 
have got their bullets. Shall I be worse than they? 
You talk about the king. If a single man can lure 
a whole people to so many sacrifices, must not that 
man be superior to other men?”’ 

Wrede took Falkenberg gently by the shoulders, 
and added inan undertone: “And the people who 
have borne so much—would you to-day forbid 
that pecple to press fast the crown of martyrdom?” 

The lords entered the hall, but, propped on his 
stick, Kalkenberg continued to wander back and 
forth in the ante-room. When he at length sat down 


236 THE CHARLES MEN 


at the Council table, the secretary had already read 
out the long address, and the signatures were de- 
sired. 

No one asked leave to speak. Falkenberg sat 
huddled together in his armchair. His eyes were 
moist and dim. Forgetful of precedent, he fumbled 
with his hands on all sides and whispered, ‘A pen, 


1? 
a pen. 


In the Church Square 


ROAD-SHOULDERED Jons Snare of 

Mora was eating porridge with his peasant 
neighbors, Mons and Mathias. He was so stingy 
that he lay and slept all winter in a shutter-bed to 
save lighting. His large, flat, beardless face, which 
glowed in the light from the round window, was 
uglier and more wrinkled than a troll’s, and he 
talked slowly with a hollow and rumbling voice. 

“‘T predict,” said he, striking his hand on the 
table, “that days of bark-bread are coming. To- 
morrow I kill my last cow. Every year brings new 
levies and conscriptions, and now they want to take 
from us the church bell, the money for the Com- 
munion wine, and the grain in the church store- 
house.” 

“It’s truly spoken, that,” said Mons. 

He scratched his gray cheeks and took another 
pinch of salt on his porridge-spoon, because it was 
the Sabbath. At other times Mons was so stingy 
that he went around among the neighbors and 
counted the pinches of salt on the porridge and the 
sticks of wood under the pot. 

Mathias, on the contrary, leaned forward over 
the table, shrivelled and ugly, with black teeth and 
two small shining gray vipers for eyes. He was, 
however, the stingiest of the three. A more cov- 
etous peasant never lived in the parish. He was 


238 THE CHARLES MEN 


so stingy that he went into the sacristy to the priest 
and ordered him on week days to wear wooden 
shoes like the common folk. 

“My opinion simply is,” he droned, “that God 
set us peasants to keep our thumbs on the na- 
tion’s purse. Not a copper will I lay in the bailiff’s 
fist: 

“But steal my fish-net,” answered Jons Snare, 
“that you could.” 

“It’s truly spoken, that,” said Mons. 

Mathias sneered, and broke a !oaf with the back 
of an axe: “ What’s a man to do when he’s starv- 
ings’ 

Jons Snare shook his long and straggling yellow 
hair and got up, and his speech could be heard far 
outside the cabin. 

“Ay, sluggard, then do you take your father’s 
old blunderbuss from the wall, pick off the bailiff 
and the tax assessor, and hide them in the hayloft. 
And before you are done for or come to the gallows, 
you shall go with me to Stockholm to teach the 
great gentlemen peasant wit. Peace we demand, 
and peace it shall be!” 

“Tt’s truly spoken, that. We’ll go with you,” 
said Mons and got up, swaying in the knees. 

Even Mathias got up and gave Jons Snare a 
hand-shake. 

“To begin with, let’s go on to the church and 
talk to the common folk,” he said, with his whin- 


IN’ THE CHURCH SOUARE 239 


ing voice. “ We must hold by ourancient rights and 
liberties!” 

“T’ll talk, sure enough I will,” answered Jons 
Snare; “and peace it shall be. We demand it.” 

They went out of the cabin, and on the way 
talked with wives and servant-maids and old men 
and boys. When they came to the church square, 
they had a good twenty or thirty following with 
them. 

The autumn sun shone cold and clear over 
woody ridges and lakes and on the long white 
church. On the square in front of the stable-build- 
ing the people murmured between wagons and 
carts, but thechildren of the confirmation class, who 
had sat by the altar, had as yet got no further than 
the threshold of the church porch. The shaggiest 
old men, who came down from the woods and who 
had already put on their fur coats, began to cry out 
and make a racket when they recognized Jons 
Snare, because they all regarded him as the most 
stiff-necked and powerful peasant in the parish. 
The other Dalecarlians, as well, with bright, open 
features and white shirts that gleamed out between 
leather breeches and vests, turned toward him, for 
it seemed to them that nothing in the world had 
more weight than his slow and obstinate words. 

“You are great church-goers, you,” he shouted 
to them. “I suppose it’s to learn the new church 
prayer about the subject’s duty of patience.” 


240 THE CHARLES MEN 


No one gave himself leisure to answer. All 
thronged about him. 

“The king is taken!” they shouted. ‘The king 
is taken! The king is taken!” 

“Is the king taken?” Jons Snare stood with his 
hands clenched and looked inquiringly from one 
to another. 

“It’s truly spoken, that,” said Mons. 

“ Be still, you fellow! What do you know about 
it?’ roared Jons Snare, and lifted his clenched hands 
half up so that all edged away and left him space. 

He sat down on a bench before the stables, but 
the Dalecarlians would not leave him, and the circle 
around him became closer. No one wanted to lose 
a single word. 

“Is the king taken?”’ he asked afresh. 

“So it’s being told from one to another. A smith 
from Falun has said that the king is taken among 
the heathens.” 

Mathias moved up nearer and bent himself and 
stretched out his long fingers. 

“What do you think about these tidings, Jons 
Snare, I simply ask?”’ 

Jons Snare sat with hands on knees, and the sun 
shone upon his wooden, motionless forehead and 
hard lips. He looked down at the ground. 

“ Whatdoyousay?”’ murmured the Dalecarlians. 
“In Stockholm one of the councillors is giving his 
own money to the Crown, another his plate, and 


IN THE CHURCH SQUARE 241 


thethird proposes that every well-to-do subject shall 
give all he has and hereafter possess no more than 
the poor man. There is only the Queen Dowager 
who wants her allowance undiminished, the stingy 
trollop, and people on the street are breaking the 
windows of Piper’s countess.” 

“And we,” said Mathias, “we ought to take the 
blunderbuss from the wall, Jons Snare says.” 

“Tt’s truly spoken, that,” confirmed Mons. 

Jons Snare was still silent, and it now became so 
still around him that nothing else was heard than 
the ringing of the bell. 

“Yes,” he answered after a time, and his voice 
rumbled more deeply and bitterly than ever before, 
“we ought to take the blunderbuss from the wall 
and leave the house. By God! you good men of the 
Dale,if the king is taken, then we demand that they 
should lead us against the foe, so that we may get 
him home.” 

Mathias remained in thought, but his brow be- 
came bright, and his gray eyes twinkled slyly. 

“ Took you, that isa demand that belongs to our 
ancient rights and liberties.” 

“Tt’s truly spoken, that,” said Mons. 

“Yes, yes, that’s a demand that belongs to our 
ancient rights and liberties,” murmured the Dale- 
carlians, and lifted their hands in affirmation. Then 
there was such a clamor and uproar that the bells 
could no more be heard. 


Captured 
| ee out in the wastes of Smaland and Finnved 


wondrous portents appeared in the air, and 
since work lost all worth and the morrow all hope, 
people either went hungry or ate and drank with 
riot and revel amid half-stifled curses. At every 
farm sat a mother or a widow in mourning. During 
the day’s occupation she talked of the fallen or the 
captives, and at night she started from her sleep, 
and thought she was still hearing the thunder of the 
hideous wagons on which teamsters in black oil- 
cloth cloaks carried away those who had died of the 
plague. 

In the church of Riddarholm the body of the 
Princess Hedwig Sofia had lain unburied for seven 
years from lack of money, and nowa new coffin had 
been laid out for the old Queen Dowager Hedwig 
Eleonora, the mother of the Charleses. Several 
sleepy ladies-in-waiting were keeping the death- 
watch, and wax-lights burned mistily around the 
dead, who lay wrapped ina simple covering of linen. 

The youngest lady-in-waiting arose, yawning, 
went to the window,and drew back the black broad- 
cloth to see if dawn had not appeared. 

Limping steps were heard from the ante-room, 
and a little man of a gnarled and rugged figure, who 
inevery way tried tosubdue the thump of his wooden 
leg, advanced to the coffin and with signs of deep 


CAPTURED 243 


reverence lifted aside the drapery. His fair, almost 
white hair lay close along his head and extended 
down his neck as far as his collar. From a flask he 
poured embalming liquid into a funnel, which was 
set in the royal corpse between the kirtle and the 
bodice. But the liquid was absorbed very slowly, 
and, waiting, he set down the flask on the funeral 
carpet and went to the lady at the window. 

“Ts it not seven o'clock yet, Blomberg!”’ she 
whispered. 

“Tt has just struck six. [t’san awful weather out- 
side, and I feel in the stump of my leg that we ’re 
going to have a snowstorm. But then it’s a long 
while since one could foretell anything good in 
Sweden. Trust me, not this time either will there 
be enough money for a decent funeral. It was only 
the beginning when the sainted -kerot prophesied 
misery and conflagration. And perhaps the fire 
didn’t go on over the island in front of the castle! 
Over the plain of Uppsala it threw its light from 
cathedral and citadel. In Vasteras and Linkoping 
the tempest sweeps the ashes around the blackened 
spaces devastated by fire—and now there’s burn- 
ing in all quarters of the kingdom. Forgive my free- 
dom, gracious mistress, but to tell the truth ts in 
the long run less dangerous than to le. That’s my 
old maxim that saved my life once down there by 
the Dnieper River.” 

“Saved your life? You were then a surgeon in 


244 THE CHARLES MEN 


your regiment. You must sit down by me here and 
tell the story. The time is so long.” 

Blomberg spoke resignedly and a trifle like a 
priest, from time to time lifting his dexter and mid- 
dle fingers with the other fingers closed. 

Both cast a glance at the corpse, which slept in 
its coffin with gracefully disposed locks, and wax 
and rouge in the deepest of the wrinkles. There- 
upon they sat themselves on a bench in the win- 
dow-nook outside the hanging broadcloth, and 
Blomberg began whispering his narrative. 


I was lying unconscious in the marshy wilderness 
at Poltava. I had stumbled along on my wooden 
leg and got a blow from a horse’s hoof, and when 
I came to, it was night. I felt a cold, strange hand 
fumble under my coat and pull at the buttons. An 
abomination before the Lord are the devices of the 
wicked, I thought; but gentle words are pure. 
Without becoming frightened, I seized the corpse- 
plunderer very silently by the breast, and by his 
stammered words of terror I perceived that he was 
one of the Zaporogeans who had made an alliance 
with the Swedes and followed the army. As sur- 
geon I had tended many of these men, as well as 
captured Poles:and Muscovites, and could make 
myself tolerably understood in their various lan- 


guages. 


“Many devices are in the heart of man,” said I 
y 


CAPTURED 245 


meekly; “but the counsel of the Lord, that shall 
abide. No evil can befall the righteous, but the un- 
godly shall be filled with misfortunes.” 

“Forgive me, pious sir,” whispered the Zapo- 
rogean. ‘The Swedish czar has left us poor Zapo- 
_ rogeans to our fate, and the Muscovite czar, whom 
we faithlessly deserted, is coming to maim and slay 
us. I only wanted to get me a Swedish coat so that 
in a moment of need I could give myself out as one 
of you. Do not be angry, godly sir!” 

To see if he had any knife, I searched out flint 
and steel while he was speaking and made a fire 
with dry thistles and twigs which lay at my feet. I 
noted then that I had before mea little frightened 
old man with a sly face and two empty hands. He 
raised himself as vehemently as a hungry animal 
that has found its prey, and bent in the light over 
a Swedish ensign who lay dead in the grass. Think- 
ing that a dead man might willingly grant a help- 
less ally his coat, I did nothing to hinder the Zapo- 
rogean; but as he drew the coat from the fallen 
one, a letter slipped from the pocket. I saw by the 
address that Falkenberg was the name of the bov 
who had bled to death. He lay now as fairly and 
peacefully stretched out as if he had slept in the 
meadow by the house where he was born. The 
letter was from his sister, and I had only time to 
spell out the words which from that hour became 
my favorite maxim: “To tell the truth is in the 


246 THE CHARLES MEN 


long run less dangerous than to lie.” At that mo- 
ment the Zaporogean put out my light. 

“With your wise consent, sir,” he whispered; 
“do not draw the corpse-plunderers hither.”’ 

I paid little attention to his talk, but repeated 
time after time: “To tell the truth is in the long 
run less dangerous than to lie. That is a big saying, 
my old fellow, and you shall see that I get along 
further with it than you do with your disguise.” 

“We may try it,” answered the Zaporogean, 
“but we must promise this, that the one of us who 
survives the other shall offer a prayer for the 
other’s soul.” : 

“That is agreed,” I said, and gave him my hand, 
for it seemed as if through misfortune I had found 
in this shaggy-bearded barbarian a friend and a 
brother. 

He helped me up, and at daybreak we fell into 
the long line of stragglers and wounded that silently 
tottered into Poltava to give themselves up as pris- 
oners. They willingly tried to conceal the Zapo- 
rogean among the rest. His big boots with their 
flaps reached up to his hips, and his coat tails hung 
down to his spurs. As soon as a Cossack looked 
at him, he turned to one of us and cried with raised 
voice the only Swedish words he had learned in the 
campaign: “I Shwede. Devil-damn!” 

My Zaporogean and I, with eight of my com- 
rades, were assigned quarters in the upper story of 


CAPTURED 247 


a big stone house. As we two had come up there 
first, we picked out for ourselves a little separate 
cubby-hole with a window on an alley. There was 
nothing else than a little straw to lie on, but I had 
in my coat a tin flute, which I had taken from a 
fallen Kalmuck at Starodub, and on which I had 
taught myself to play a few pretty hymns. With 
that I shortened the time,and soon we noticed that, 
as often as I played,a young woman cameto the win- 
dow on the other side of the alley. Possibly for that 
reason I played more than I should have otherwise 
cared to, and I know not rightly whether she was 
fairer and more seemly than all other women, or 
whether long sojourn among men had made my 
eye less accustomed, but I had great joy in be- 
holding her. However, I never looked at her when 
she turned her face toward our window, because I 
have always been bashful before women-folk, and 
have never rightly understood how to conduct 
myself in that which pertains to them. Nor have 
I ever sought fellowship with men who go with 
their heads full of wenches and do nothing but 
hanker after gailant intrigues. ‘ Let every one keep 
his vessel in holiness,” Paul saith, “and not in the 
lust of desire as do the heathen, which know not 
God; also let no one in this matter dishonor and 
wrong his brother, because the Lord 1s a powerful 
avenger in all such things.” 

I recognized, however, that a man should at all 


248 THE CHARLES MEN 


times bear himself courteously and fittingly, and 
as one sleeve of my coat was in tatters, I always 
turned that side inward when I played. 

She usually sat with arms crossed above the 
window-sill, and her hands were round and white, 
though large. She had a scarlet-colored bodice 
with silver buttons and many chains. An old witch 
who often stood beneath her window with a wheel- 
barrow and sold bread covered with jam called her 
Feodosova. 

When it grew dusk, she lighted a lamp, and 
since neither she nor we had any shutters, we could 
follow her with our glancewhen she blewon the fire, 
but I found it more proper that we should turn 
away, and I therefore set myself with my Zaporo- 
gean on the straw in the corner. 

Besides the prayer-book, I had a few torn-out 
leaves of Miuller’s Sermons, and IJ read and trans- 
lated many passages for my Zaporogean. But when 
I noticed that he did not listen, I gave it over for 
more worldly objects, and asked him of our neigh- 
bor on the other side of the alley. He said that she 
was not unmarried, because maidens in that country 
always wore a long plait tied with ribbons and a 
little red tuft of silk. More likely she was a widow, 
because her hair hung loose as a token of sorrow. 

When it became wholly dark, and we lay down 
on the straw, I discovered that the Zaporogean 
had stolen my silver snuff-spoon, but after I had - 


CAPTURED 249 


taken it back and reproached him for his fault, we 
slept beside each other as friends. 

I was almostashamed, when it was morning again, 
at feeling myself happier than for a long time, but 
as soon as I had held prayers with the Zaporogean 
and had washed and arranged myself sufficiently, I 
went to the window and played one of my most 
beautiful hymns. 

Feodosova was already sitting in the sunlight. 
To show her how different the Swedes were from 
her fellow countrymen, I instructed my Zaporo- 
gean to clean our room, and after a couple of 
hours the whitewashed walls were shining white 
and free from cobwebs. All this helped me to 
drive away my thoughts, but as soon as I set 
myself again to rest, my torments of conscience 
awakened that I could be happy in such misery. 
In the hall outside, my comrades sat on floor and 
benches, sighing heavily and whispering about their 
dear ones at home. In due turn, two of us every 
day were allowed to go out into the open air to 
the ramparts, but when I laid myself on my straw 
in the evening, I was ashamed to pray God that 
the lot next morning should fall upon me. I knew 
very well within myself that, if I longed for an 
hour’s freedom, it was only to invent an errand to 
the house opposite. And yet I felt that, if the lot 
really fell upon me without my prayer, I should 
still never venture to go up there. 


250 THE CHARLES MEN 


When I came to the window in the morning, 
Feodosova lay sleeping in her clothes on the floor 
with a cushion under her neck. It was still early 
and cool, and I did not have the heart to set the 
tin flute to my mouth. But as I stood there and 
waited, she may have apprehended in her sleep 
that I was gazing at her, for she looked up and 
laughed and stretched her arms out, and all that 
so suddenly that I did not manage to draw back 
unnoticed. My brow became hot, I laid aside my 
flute, and behaved myself in every way so clumsily 
and unskilfully that I never was so displeased with 
myself. I pulled and straightened my belt, took 
my flute again from the window, inspected it, and 
pretended I was blowing dust out of it. When 
finally the Russian subaltern who had charge over 
us unfortunates informed my Zaporogean that he 
was one of the two who were to go out into the 
city that day, I drew the Zaporogean aside into 
a corner and enjoined him with many words to 
pick a bunch of yellow stellaria such as I had seen 
around the burned houses by the ramparts. At a 
suitable opportunity we should then give them to 
Feodosova, I said. She appeared to be a good and 
worthy woman, who perchance in return might 
give us poor fellows some fruit or nuts, I said. 
The miserable bite of bread that the czar allowed 
us daily did not even quiet our worst hunger, I 
said, 


CAPTURED 251 

He was afraid to show himself out in the sun- 
light, but neither did he dare to arouse mistrust 
by staying in, and therefore he obeyed and went. 

Scarcely was he out of the door, though, when 
I began to regret that I had not held him back, 
because now in solitude my embarrassment grew 
much greater. I sat down on the bed in the corner, 
where I was invisible, and stayed there obstinately. 

Still the time was not long, for thoughts were 
many. After a while I heard the Zaporogean’s 
voice. Without reflecting, I went to the window 
and saw him standing by I*eodosova with a great, 
splendid bouquet of stellaria, which reminded one 
of irises. First she didn’t want to take them, but 
answered that they were impure, since they had 
been given by a heathen. He pretended that he 
understood nothing and that he knew only a few 
words of her speech, but with winkings and ges- 
tures and nods he made it intelligible that I had 
sent the flowers, and then at last she took them. 

Beside myself with bashfulness, I went back into 
the corner, and when the Zaporogean returned, 
I seized him behind the shoulders, shook him, and 
stood him against the wall. 

But scarcely had I let go my grasp when he 
with his thoughtless vivacity stood at the window 
again, made signs with his hands, and threw kisses 
on all five of his fingers. Then I came forward, 
pushed him aside, and bowed. I*eodosova sat pick- 


252 THE CHARLES MEN 


ing the flowers apart, pulling off the leaves and 
letting them fall one by one to the ground. Ve- 
hemence helped me so that I took courage and 
began to speak without stopping to consider how 
it would be most polite to begin a conversation. 

“The lady will not take amiss my comrade’s 
pranks and unseemly gestures,” I stammered. 

She plucked still more eagerly at the flowers 
and answered after a time, ‘‘ My husband, when he 
was alive, often used to say that from heel to head 
such well-made soldiers as the Swedes were not 
to be found. He had seen Swedish prisoners un- 
dressed and whipped by women, and had seen that 
the women at the last were so moved because of 
their beauty that they stuck the rods under their 
arms and sobbed, themselves, instead of those they 
tormented. Therefore have I become very curious 
these days. . . - And the love songs which you play 
sound so wonderful.” 

Her speech pleased me not altogether, and | 
found it little seemly to answer in the same spirit 
by praising her figure and white arms. Instead 
I took my flute and played my favorite hymn: 
“Fen from the bottom of my heart I call Thee in 
my need.” 

After that we conversed of many things, and 
though my store of words was small, we soon under- 
stood each other so well that never didany dayseem 
to me shorter. 


CAPTURED 253 


At mid-day, after she had clattered about with 
jugs and plates and swung a palm-leaf fan over the 
embers in the fireplace, she lifted down from the 
ceiling a landing-net with which formerly her hus- 
band had caught small fish in the river. In the net 
she put a pan with steaming cabbage and a wooden 
flask with kvass, and the handle was so long that 
she could hand us the meal across the street. When 
I drank to her, she nodded and smiled and said that 
she did not regard it as wrong to feel pity for cap- 
tured heathens. Toward evening she moved her 
spinning-wheel to the window, and we kept on con- 
versing when it was dusk. I no longer felt it as a 
sin to be happy in the midst of the sorrow that sur- 
rounded us, because my intent was innocent and 
pure. Just as I had seen the stellaria shining over 
heaps of ashes among the burned and desolate 
houses by the ramparts as a song of praise to God’s 
goodness, so seemed to me now the joy of my heart. 

When it became night, and I had held prayer 
with my Zaporogean and yet once more reproached 
him that he had stolen my snuff-spoon, the garru- 
lous man began to talk to me in an undertone and 
say : “I see clearly, little father, that you are in love 
a keodosova, and in truth she is a good and pure 
woman whom you may take to wife. That you never 
would enter upon any love-dealing of another sort 
I have understood from the first.” 

“Such stuff!’ answered I, “such stuff!” 


254 THE CHARLES MEN 


“Truth is in the long run less dangerous than 
lying, you used to say.” 

When he struck me with my own maxim-staff, 
I became confounded, and he proceeded. 

“The czar has promised good employment and 
wages to every one of you Swedes who will become 
his subject and be converted to the true faith.” 

“You are out of your wits. But if I could steal off 
and take her home with me on horseback, I would 
dere: 

Next morning, when I had played my hymn, I 
learned that to-day it was my turn to go out under 
the open heavens. 

I became warm and restless. I combed and fixed 
myself up even more carefully than at other times, 
and changed to the Zaporogean’s ensign coat, so as 
not to wear my torn one. Meanwhile I deliberated 
with myself. Should I go up to her? What should 
I say then? Perhaps, though, that would be the only 
time in my life when I could get to speak with her, 
and how should I not repent thereafter even to my 
gray old age, if out of awkwardness I had missed 
that one chance! My heart beat more violently than 
at any affair with the enemy, when I had stood with 
my bandages among the bullets and the fallen. I 
stuck the flute into my pocket and went out. 

When I came down on the street, she sat at the 
window without seeing me. I would not go to her 
without firstasking leave,and I did not knowrightly 


CAPTURED 255 
how I should conduct myself. Pondering, I took a 
couple of steps forward. 

Then she heard me and looked out. 

I lifted my hand to my hat, but with a long, ring- 
ing burst of laughter she sprang up and cried, 
““Flaha! Look, look, he has a wooden leg!” 

I stood with my hand raised, and stared and 
stared, and | had neither thought nor feeling. It 
was as if my heart had swelled out and filled all 
my breast, so that it was near to bursting. I believe 
I stammered something. I only remember that I 
did not know whither I shouldturn, that I heard her 
still laughing, that everything in the world was in- 
different to me, that freedom would have frightened 
me as much as my captivity and my wretchedness, 
that of a sudden I had become a broken man. 

I remember vaguely a long and steep lane with- 
out stone pavement, where I was accosted by other 
Swedish prisoners. Perhaps, even, I answered them, 
asked after their health, and took some puffs out of 
the tobacco pipes they lent me. 

I believe I disturbed myself over the fact that it 
was so long till night, so that I had to return the 
same way and pass her window in brightest day- 
light. By every means I prolonged the time, speaking 
now to one man, now toanother, but shortly the Rus- 
sian dragoons came and ordered me to turn about 
to my place. 

As I went up the lane, I persuaded myself that 


256 THE CHARLES MEN 


I would not betray myself, but would salute in a 
quite friendly manner before the window. Was it 
her fault that so many of the Swedish soldiers, of 
whom she had had such fine dreams, were now pitiful 
cripples on wooden legs? 

“ Hurry up there!” thundered the dragoons,and 
I hastened my steps, so that the thumping of my 
wooden leg echoed between the walls of the 
houses. 

“‘ Dear Heavenly Father,” I muttered, “faithfully 
have I served my earthly master. Is this the reward 
Thou givest me, that Thou makest of me in my 
youth a defenceless captive, at whom women laugh? 
Yea, this is Thy recompense, and Thou wilt abase 
me into yet deeper humiliation, that thereby I may 
at length become worthy of the crown of blessed- 
Ness: 

When I came under the window and carried my 
handto my hat, Isaw that Feodosova wasaway. That 
gave me no longer any relief. I stumbled up to my 
prison, and at every step heard the thumping of 
my wooden leg. 

“J have talked with Feodosova,” whispered the 
Zaporogean. 

I gave him no reply. My ape my flower, 
that had grown up over the heaps of ashes, lay 
consumed; and if it had again shone out, I meee 
in alarm, would have trampled it to death with my 


CAPTURED 257 


wooden leg. What signified to me the Zaporogean’s 
whisperings? 

“Ah!” he went on, “when you were gone, I re- 
proached Feodosova and said to her that you were 
fonder of her than she realized, and that, if you were 
not a stranger and a heathen, you would ask her to 
be your wife.” 

In silence I clenched my hands and bit my lips 
together, to lock up my vexation and embarrass- 
ment, and I thanked God that He abased me every 
moment more deeply in shame and ridicule before 
men. 

I opened the door to the outer hall and began 
to talk to the other prisoners: 

“‘As wild asses in the desert we go painfully to 
seek our food. On a field that we do not own we 
must go as husbandmen, and harvest in the vine- 
vard of the ungodly, We lie naked the whole night 
from lack of garments, and are without covering 
against the cold. We are overwhelmed by the deluge 
from the mountains,and from lack of shelter we em- 
race the cliffs. But we beg Thee not for mitigation, 
Almighty God. We pray only: Lead us, be nigh 
anto us! Behold, Thou hast turned away Thy 
countenance from our people and stuck thorns in 
our shoes, that we may become Thy servants and 
Thy children. In the mould of the battle-field our 
brothers sleep, and a fairer song of victory than that 


258 THE CHARLES MEN 


of the conquerors by the sword Thou dost offer to 
Thy chosen ones.” 

“Yea, Lord, lead us, be nigh unto us!” echoed 
all the prisoners murmuringly. 

Then out of the darkest corner rose a lonely, 
trembling voice, which cried: “Oh, that I were as 
in former months, as in the days when God pro- 
tected me, when His lamp shone upon my head, 
when with His light I went into the darkness! As 
I was in my autumn days, when God’s friendship 
was over my tent, while yet the Almighty was with 
me, and my children were about me! Thus my heart 
cries out with Job, but I hear it no longer, and I 
stammer forth nolonger: Takeaway my trials! With 
the ear I have heard tell of Thee, O God, but now 
hath mine eye beheld Thee.” 

“ Quiet, quiet!’ whispered the Zaporogean, tak- 
ing hold of me, and his hands were cold and trem- 
bling. ‘It can be no one else than the czar who is 
coming below in the lane.” 

The lane had become filled with people, with beg- 
gars and boys and old women and soldiers. In the 
middle of the throng the czar, tall and lean, walked 
very calmly, without a guard. A swarm of hopping 
and shrieking dwarfs were his only retinue. Nowand 
then, turning, he embraced and kissed the smallest 
dwarf on the forehead in a fatherly way. Here and 
there he stood still before a house, and was offered a 


glass of brandy, which he jestingly emptiedatasingle 


CAPTURED 259 


gulp. It could be nobody but the czar, because one 
saw directly that he alone ruled over both people 
and city. He came so close under my window that I 
could have touched his green cloth cap and the half- 
torn-off brass buttons on his brown coat. On the 
skirt he had a great silver button with an artificial 
stone and on his legsrough woollen stockings. His 
brown eyes gleamed and flashed, and the small black 
moustaches stood straight up from his shining lips. 

When he caught sight of Feodosova, he seemed 
as if smitten with madness. When she came down 
on the street and knelt with a cup, he pinched her 
ear, then took her under the chin and lifted up her 
head, so that he could look her in the eyes. 

“Tell me,chid, heunquired, “where is there 
a comfortable room in which [ can eat? May there 
be one at your house?” 

The czar had seldom with him on his excursions 
any master of ceremonies orothercourtier. He took 
along neither bed nor bed-clothes nor cooking uten- 
sils; no, not even a cooking or eating vessel; but 
everything had to be provided in the turn of a hand 
wherever it occurred to him to take lodging. It was 
for this reason that there was now running and clat- 
tering at all the gates and stairs. rom this direction 
came a man with a pan, from that another with an 
earthen platter, from yonder a third with a ladle and 
drinking utensils. Up in Feodosova’sroom the floor 
was strewn deeply with straw. The czar helped with 


260 THE CHARLES MEN 


the work like a common servant,and the chief direc- 
tion was carried on by a hunchbacked dwarf, who 
was called the Patriarch. The dwarf every once in 
a while put his thumb to his nose and blew it in the 
air straight in front of the czar’s face, or invented 
rascal tricks of which I cannot relate before a lady 
of quality. 

Once when the czar turned with crossed arms to 
the window, he noticed me and the Zaporogean, and 
nodded likeacomrade. The Zaporogean threw him- 
self prostrate on the floor and stammered his “I 
Shwede. Devil-damn!”’ But I pushed him aside with 
my foot and told him once for all to be silent and 
get up, because no Swede conducted himself in that 
fashion. To cover himas muchas possible, I stepped 
in front of him and took my position there. 

“Dat is nit ubel,” said the czar, but at once fell 
back into his mother speech, and asked who I was. 

“Blomberg, surgeon with the Uppland regi- 
ment,” I answered. 

The czar scanned me with a narrowing gaze, so 
penetrating that I have never seen a more all-dis- 
cerning look. 

“Your regiment exists no longer,” he said, ‘and 
here you see Rehnskidld’s sword.” He lifted the 
sword with its scabbard from his belt and threw it 
on the table, so that the plates hopped. “ But for 
certain you are a rogue, for you wear a captain’s or 
ensign’s uniform.” 


CAPTURED 261 


I answered, “‘ That is a hard saying,’ saith John 
the Evangelist. The coat I borrowed after my own 
fell in rags, and if that be ill done, I will yet hope 
for grace, because this is my maxim: Totellthetruth 
is in the long run less dangerous than to lie.” 

‘Good. If that is your motto, you shall take your 
servant with you and come over here, so that we 
may prove it.” 

The Zaporogean trembledand tottered,as he fol- 
lowed behind me, but as soon as we entered, the czar 
pointed me toa chair among the others at the table, 
as if I had been his equal, and said, ‘Sit, Wooden- 
eal 

He had Feodosova on his knee, without the least 
consideration of what could be said about it, and 
round them stamped and whistled the dwarfs and 
a crowd of Boyarswho now began to collect. A dwarf 
who was called Judas, because he carried a likeness 
of that arch-villain on the chain around his neck, 
seized a handful of shrimps from the nearest plate 
and threw them to the ceiling, so that they fell in 
a rain over dishes and people. When in that way he 
had made the others turn toward him, he pointed 
at the czar with many grimaces and called quite 
coolly to him: “You amuse yourself, you Peter 
Alexievitch. Even outside of the city I have heard 
tell of the pretty Feodosova of Poltava, I have; but 
you always scrape together the best things for your- 
self, you little father.” 


262 THE CHARLES MEN 


“That you do,” chimed in the other dwarfs in 
' aring around the czar. “ You are an arch-thief, you 
Peter Alexievitch.” 

Sometimes the czar laughed or answered, some- 
times he did not hearthem, butsat seriousand medi- 
tative,and hiseyes moved meanwhile like twogreen- 
glinting insects in the sunlight. 

I called to mind how I had once seen the most 
blessed Charles the Eleventh converse with Rud- 
beck, and how it then came over me that Rudbeck, 
for all his bowings, amounted to far more than the 
king. Here it was the other way about. Although 
the czar himself went around and did the waiting, 
and let himself be treated worse than a knave, I saw 
only him—and Feodosova. I read his purpose in 
the smallest things. I recognized it in the forcibly 
curtailed caftans and shaven chins at the city gate. 

There was a buzzing in my head, and I knelt 
humbly on the straw and stammered: “ Imperial 
Majesty! To tell the truth is in the long run less 
dangerous than to lie, and the Lord said to Moses: 
‘Thou shalt not hold with the great ones in that 
whichisevil.’ Therefore I beseech that I may forego 
further drinking. For behold, I am soon done with 
the game, and my gracious lord —who 1s both like 
and unlike Your Imperial Majesty — has in the last 
year turned me to drinking filtered marsh water.” 

A twitching and trembling began in the czar’s 
right cheek near the eye. 


CAPTURED 263 


“Yes, by Saint Andreas!” said he. “I am unlike 
my brother Charles, for he hates women like a 
woman and wine like a woman, and offers up his 
people’s richesasa woman her husband’s,and abuses 
me like a woman; but I respect him like a man. 
His health, Wooden-Leg! Drink, drink!” 

The czar sprang forward, seized me by the hair, 
and held the goblet to my mouth, so that the As- 
trakan ale foamed over my chin and collar. As we 
drank the prescribed health, two soldiers entered in 
brownish yellow uniforms with blue collars and dis- 
charged their pistols, so that the hot room, which 
was already filled with tobacco clouds and onion 
smell, was now also enveloped in powder smoke. 

The czar sat down again at the table. Even in all 
that noise he wanted to sit and think, but he never 
allowed any one else to shirk the duty of drinking 
and become serious like himself. He drew Feodo- 
sova afresh to his knee. Poor, poor Feodosova! She 
sat there,a bit sunk together, witharms hanging and 
mouth impotently half-open, as if she waited cuffs 
and blows amid the caresses. Why had she not 
courage to pull the sword to her from the table, 
press her wrist against the edge,and save her honor, 
before it was too late? Over and over she night 
have laughed at my wooden leg and my disgrace, 
if with my life I could have preserved her honor. 
Nor had I ever before been so near her and seen 
so clearly to what a wondrous work she had been 


264 THE CHARLES MEN 


formed in the Heavenly Creator’s hands. Poor, poor 
Feodosova, if you had but felt in your heart with 
what a pure intent a friend regarded you in your 
humiliation, and howhe prayed for your well-being! 

Hour after hour the banquet continued. Those 
of the Boyars and dwarfs who were most completely 
overcome already lay relaxed in the straw and vom- 
ited or made water, but the czar himself always rose 
up and leaned out through the window. “ Drink, 
Wooden-Leg, drink!”” he commanded, and hunted 
me around the room with the glass, making the 
Boyars hold me till I had emptied every drop. The 
twitching in his face became ever more uncanny, 
and when wewere finally together at the table again, 
he moved three brimful earthen bowls in front of 
me and said: “ Now, Wooden-Leg, you shall pro- 
pose a health to be drunk all round and teach us to 
understand its meaning with your maxim.” 

I raised myself again as well as I could. 

“ Your health, czar!” I shouted, “for you are as- 
suredly born to command.” 

“Why,” he asked, “should the soldiers present 
arms and salute me if any other was worthier to 
command! Where is there anything more pitiful 
than an incompetent ruler? The day I find my own 
son unworthy to inherit my great, beloved realm, 
that day shall he die. Your first truth, Wooden- 
Leg, requires no bowl.” 

The pistols cracked, and all drank but the czar. 


CAPTURED 265 


Then I gathered the fragments of my under- 
standing as a miser his coins, for I believed that, if 
I could catch the czar in a gracious and mild humor, 
I might perhaps save my Feodosova. 

“Well, then, Imperial Majesty,” I continued, 
therefore, lifting one of the bowls on high, “this is 
Astrakan ale, brewed of mead and brandy with pep- 
per and tobacco. It burns much before it delights, 
and when it delights, it puts one to sleep.” 

With that I threw the bowl to the groundso that 
it broke in a thousand pieces. Then I lifted the next 
bowl. 

“’This is Hungarian wine. ‘ Drink no more only 
water, writes the Apostle Paul to Timothy,‘ but use 
alittle wine for thy stomach’s sake, and because 
thou art so often sick.’ So speaks a holy one to 
weakly men and stay-at-homes. But go out on the 
battle-field amid frost and wailing and tell me, to 
how many of the groaning would this bowl of 
sweetish wine give relief from pain and a softer 
death?” 

Therewith I threw that bowl also to the ground 
so that it broke. Then I lifted the third bowl. 

“This is brandy. It is despised by the fortunate 
and the rich, because they thirst not after refresh- 
ment as the desert for coolness, but would only 
gibe at the pleasure it gives. But brandy assumes 
power inthe very moment it glides over the tongue, 
like a despot in the moment he steps across a 


266 _ THE CHARLES MEN 


threshold, and the bleeding and dying draw com- 
fort from a few drops. Therefore I call brandy the 
best, for I speak as a warrior, and to tell the truth 
is in the long run less dangerous than to lie.” 

“Right, right!”’ acclaimed the czar, and took the 
bow! and drank, at the same time that he handed 
me two gold-pieces, while the pistols cracked. “ You 
shall have a pass and a horse to go your way, and 
wherever you come, you shall tell about Poltava.”’ 

Then I knelt yet again in the straw and stam- 
mered: ‘ Imperial Majesty —in my pettiness and 
weakness — beside you sits a—a pure and good 
woman.’ 

“Haha!” screamed the dwarfs and Boyars, who 
tottered to their feet. “‘ Haha! haha!” 

The czar got up and led Feodosova toward me. 

“I understand. He who limps on a wooden leg 
may fall in love, too. Good. I present her to you just 
as she is, and you shall have a good situation with 
me. I have promised every Swede who enters into 
my service and is baptized in our faith that he shall 
become one of our people.” 

Feodosovastood likeasleep-walker and stretched 
her hands towards me. What did it matter that she 
had laughedat me? I shouldsoon have forgotten that, 
and she would soon not have seen my wooden leg, 
for I should have cared for her and worked for her 
and prayed with her and made her home bright and 
tranquil. I should have lifted her up to my bosom 


CAPTURED 267 
as a child and asked her if an honest and faithful 
heart could not make another heart throb. May- 
hap she already bore the answer on her tongue, for 
slowly she beamed up and became flushed, and her 
whole face became transfigured. Far away in a cor- 
ner house on Prastgatan in Stockholm a lonely old 
woman sat with her sermon-book and listened and 
wondered whether a letter would not be left for her 
through the door, whether no disabled man would 
step in with a greeting from the remote wilderness, 
whether I never should come or whether I lay al- 
ready dead and buried. I had prayed for her every 
night. I had thought of her in the tumult in the 
midst of stretchers and wailing wounded. Butatthat 
moment | thought of her no longer; I sawand heard 
nothing else but Feodosova. And yet I was angry 
and strove against something heavy which weighed 
upon my heart and which I did not understand, but 
was only slowly and gradually able to make out. 

I bent to Feodosova to kiss her hand, but she 
whispered, “The czar’s hand, the czar’s hand.” 

Then I stretched myself toward the czar and 
kissed his hand. 

« My faith,” I whispered equally softly, “and my 
royal lord I may not desert.” 

The czar’s cheek still twitched, and the dwarfs 
in their terror pulled forth the Zaporogean from his 
nook to make the czar laugh at his ridiculous figure. 
But then the czar’s arms began to move convul- 


268 THE CHARLES MEN 


sively. His face grew gray and he trembled in one 
of his dreaded fits. He went toward the Zaporogean 
and struck him in the face with clenched fist so that 
the blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and 
with such a hoarse and altered voice that it could 
no longer be recognized he hissed: “I have seen 
through you, liar, from the moment you came into 
the room. You are a Zaporogean, a renegade, who 
have hidden yourself in Swedish clothes. — To the 
wheel with him, to the wheel!” 

All, even the drunken men, began to tremble and 
feel toward the doors, and in his terror one of the 
Boyars whispered: “Bring forward the woman! 
Shove her forward! As soon as he gets to see pretty 
faces and woman’s limbs, he grows quiet.” 

They seized her, her bodice was cut over the 
bosom, and, softly wailing, she was supported for- 
ward step by step to the czar. 

It grew black around me, and I staggered back- 
ward out of the room. I remained standing on the 
street under the stars, and I heard the clamor grow 
muffled and the dwarfs begin to sing. 

Then I clenched my hands and remembered a 
promise on the field of battle to pray for a poor sin- 
ner’s soul. But the more fervently I spoke with my 
God, the further went my thoughts, and my invo- 
cation became a prayer for a yet greater sinner who 
with his last faithful followers wandered about on 
the desolate steppes. 


CAPTURED 269 


The surgeon ceased with an anxious glance toward 
the coffin,and the lady-in-waiting followed him for- 
ward to the catafalque. 

“Amen!” said she, and the two again spread 
the covering over the wax-pale Queen Dowager, 
mother of the Charleses. 


EN DLOF “PART 1 





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